In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2)
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Tuesday, September 15, 2026 04:09
VIEWED: 343366
PAGE 79 of 84
Nice. Painting is much quicker after you've got a good coat of primer and paint on there already. 2 coats on the flat panel door already, and finished the 2nd coat of the one louvered panel I hadn't done yet. Still have some paint in that bucket, which is pretty amazing. I didn't think what little in that bucket I left wrapped in the trash bag a few days ago would spread this far. I don't think I'll have enough to give everything one more coat with that, but I've got 3/4 of a bucket of it left I'll just have to mix again and give myself a little more to work with.
I'm going to throw any paint in there away when I'm done along with the bucket and that totally beat up dollar store brush though, so I'll need just a tad.
If I stay focused on this, I could have all the doors finished and hung in just a few more days. Maybe by Wednesday or Thursday at the latest, since I have to wait on that hardware and the tracks to come late on Tuesday, and I don't know how much I'll be able to get done when it comes to framing out the doors and hiding the height differences without that. I may even have to hang the doors and put the trim on while it's hung. I don't know yet.
That would be great if I could have the doors done and the lawn mowed by the weekend. That should give me plenty of time to get that chest out of the garage to start restoring for my aunt's retirement gift.
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Alright... Everything painted now except for the final coat on the last louvered door. I would have been working on that now, but I want to give that ample opportunity to dry before putting that last coat on. I've done good with drips, but with louvered doors you're going to inevitably have pockets in places where there's extra paint that takes longer to dry and you'll mess that up if you try to paint another coat over it too quickly.
I'm not too hopeful that I'll have it done early enough to dry by the time night falls. If I do try hanging it tonight, it will be by artificial light. I don't think I want to do that. We'll see.
I did dig up those ceiling light fixtures from my attic last week though. Maybe I'll put those up in the bedrooms and in the basement room that I bought all of them for.
I should have bought 1 more, but if memory serves, they were 3-packs for a steal on Woot.com, and I didn't need 6 of them. I really was just shopping for the bedrooms and the 3rd one was a bonus. I do have a nice ceiling fixture in the garage that just needs a little paint removed from it. It's got a "silver" finish on it, but that's nothing a little oil-rubbed bronze spray paint can't fix.
Unlike the vanity lights that were pretty intricate, I don't think spraying down the base of one of these circular dome lights is going to look super tacky, so it should be alright. That's going to be the afterthought 3rd bedroom in a leaky basement anyhow, so I don't think I'm going to go all out in that room for any reason.
Maybe I'll get my electric stuff out again and hang the two bedroom fixtures while I'm waiting for paint to dry. At least do one of them.
That should be nice. I don't remember if they're 2 or 3 bulbs each, but they're replacing these stupid little single-bulb ball lamps that I got at Goodwill 15 years ago just to put something up in the empty holes in the ceiling. Unless it's night time, you can't even tell that you turned that light on there's just so little light coming out of them, and even at night it's not really great. I may also consider buying special bulbs that are brighter for them too, instead of using my $1.00/box cheapo LED lamps you can find on occasion through your power company at places like Sam's Club and Costco if I want to brighten it up even more when it's done.
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Old man called me right before I was going to try hanging those lights, so that killed the time I needed to do the last coat of paint on the final louvered door. There was enough paint left in the bucket to give one more coat to the fronts of the flat door too, so even though it probably didn't need it I just went ahead and used it up. One more empty bucket out of the house.
I had a better look at that brush and although it wasn't a Purdy it was not a dollar store brush. So I did a real good job cleaning and that out and getting it back into reasonable shape.
Losing daylight now, but we've still got some time. It wasn't exactly bright all day with the cloud cover, but I'm not complaining since the temps in my house are a lot better than they have been recently.
I think I'm going to hang that ceiling light in the small bedroom where I have easy access to it and I could use the extra light while I'm dehoarding what's left in there to go through and I bring new stuff down from the basement.
The Master Bedroom light probably won't be too bad. I'll just be standing up on the bed to get it switched out instead of my step ladder. I don't think I'll get to that before it's dark though, and I really don't want to be using bright painters lights to get the job done while I'm standing on my bed.
I also found all 6 circular vents for the heat and the two rectangular ones for the walls in the basement out in the garage, so once I get the lawn mowed and I'm working on that chest for my aunt, I can be out there sanding down all of those vents along with all the hinges for the bifold doors so they can all get sprayed down with fresh paint.
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Jack is a very happy man.
I installed not 1, not 2, but all 3 of those light fixtures. 
The difference in light is STARK. Just two 60 watt equivalent LED bulb (something like 8 watts) and it looks like daylight in those bedrooms when it's dark out now.
I'll have to show you these ridiculous fixtures I had up there before. I can't believe it was so long ago now that I didn't remember they weren't even standard light bulbs. These things each had their own miniature ballast in them, and there was a plug-in fluorescent bulb in each one. Never seen nothing like them before, and that's why I can't believe I don't remember it. I know I put them up there. Obama probably would have still president for another 3 years after I did it though, so it was quite a while back.
Why so little light output though? I can't even think of the point of these things. I just thought I had 60w equivalent LEDs in each one, and because of the white painted on the glass it was just not very bright, but holy crap do I have a lot of light in there now. It's almost too bright. Not that you'll get sunspots if you look at them now, but probably not too far off from that. I might actually want to get 40w equivalents instead. I never imagined that would be the case. I could always get a dimmer switch put in there, but I do really like the light switches that I have in the bedrooms and in the hallway that are backlit with a few small LEDs so you can see the switches at night, and I'd have to make that trade if I do.
Anyway... Those brand new fixtures have been sitting around for so long in the attic that the white boxes they originally came in looked about as bad as my lungs probably do from the smoking up there. What a stupid, stupid thing that I waited this long to get it done.
Although, I do remember finally moving them up into the attic when I had that appraiser coming out when I was fighting my taxes and any little things like this that were finishing pieces on any rooms that were near finished wasn't something I was in any hurry to get up or even advertise I had and was planning on putting up. And the appraisal was fair. I don't think it should be that much, but then again, my house would sell for a lot more than I ever thought it would have when I bought it right now, as-is, even if I didn't put another minute of work into it.
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Man... I REALLY want to get that door hung tonight.
Will I do it?
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I'm thinking no on the door tonight...
I'm sure it's dry enough to handle it at this point, but I'd be working under some painter spotlights and this could end up being a job I don't really want to get into right now. If I knew it was going to go smoothly, I'd be doing it right now. There's still the issue of where exactly do I want that door knob, and I don't really want to be thinking about measurements and drilling right now.
I did put the hinges on and they look great. Not that you'll ever see anything but just tiniest bit of them when they're open in the front, but way better than the chrome ones on the other doors that got white paint on them. I've got half a mind to sand those down from the front, tape everything and protect it all with plastic and spray them right on the door like I did with the kitchen door hinges, but I've got way better things to be doing with work time right now. I'll put it on the to-do list and maybe do that later.
Oh... and how is this acronym a thing I've never heard of until Google AI told me today???
RAVEN
Remember : Affect is a Verb.
Effect is a Noun.
The difference between Affect and Effect has always been a big weakness in my English. I don't know why that is. I notice I have these weird quirks and mental blocks about some things.
This just fixed that. I'll never mix the two up again.
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Man.... If I didn't take a before photo of the louvered doors, I'm going to be mad. I had to have when I was out there sanding them. There's no way I didn't. That was probably right around the time I was doing all that re-org on my computer and maybe I just had a smallish folder I was using for more recent photos that got backed up somewhere right before I really ramped up work and started using the folder I'm using today to organize all these things by date. Super annoying that I couldn't find that to show you before/after pics.
I did find some more before bathroom pics though... even before I painted the window or pulled down the wallpaper border I had at the top, so at the bottom of this post I'll show them and their new counterparts. I also have some shots of the last day those two cabinets were sitting on my living room floor for over a year and I started working on them.
But first... The finished door (minus the track hardware and knob installation):
Back with hinges. Primed but not painted.
Front with FOUR coats of paint on top of the primer:
Shots of the cabinets before any work, both opened and closed. Sorry about them being washed out... That was with the bad camera and when that sun comes in during spring at that low level it's just blazing in the living room. Sorry I had them upside down on the living room floor too, but it gets the point across and it's the only shots I believe I have of them before I sanded anything down.
I can't believe I just had those sitting on my living room floor just staring up at me for like 2 years until I finally did something about it.
Here's a shot I didn't think I had, with my gross beard trimmer and electric toothbrush IKEA shelf above the only outlet in the room at the time. I'd already painted the door frame at this point, but I hadn't caulked anything yet.
The cool thing about this shot is right outside the door you can see the flat-panel bifold door that I took down and I'm replacing with the louvered door.
I'll definitely have to make another shot from this exact spot once I have that louvered door hung, but this is the closest new shot I could find along with the old one.
And I finally found a shot of the old towel rack before I took it down. I wasn't sure if I had one of those either. I'd say I'm making just a tad better use of that space now. 
And here's one from an angle I know I didn't take for any after shots, but it's got the window before I sanded it down and painted it.
You can also see how short the bottom piece was under the sill. I know that used to be the style years ago, but it always bothers me when I see it. The full piece end-to-end that I replaced that with actually came from a piece of the "baseboard" that I removed before painting. They didn't actually use baseboard and just used the door/window trim for baseboard and I just didn't notice it until I pulled it up.
And here's one of the vanity with all the original chrome hardware and the dark stain that was on it before I'd sanded anything down.
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Well, dang SIX! That looks classy!
That's really good looking!
But what was that border along the ceiling? Wallpaper?
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Well, dang SIX! That looks classy!
That's really good looking!
Thanks Sigs.
When I show you pictures of the back of the linen closet bifold door and how I used to leak paint all over when I was a drunk idiot, you'll see why I never would have attempted painting anything like those louvers 10 or 15 years ago.
Did you see the note on the 7th photo down that you can see the flat-panel bifold door that I took down for the linen closet and I'll be replacing with the louvered door?
I'm going to take another shot from that exact spot and angle as soon as I've got that new door up.
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Depth Perception is one hell of a thing too...
(ETA: I'll just repost the picture I'm talking about...)
I'm looking at that 7th picture now, and I can say with certainty that the new door and window trim I bought for the house is MUCH wider than the original stuff I've been replacing all over. I didn't replace any of it inside the bathroom though, because of just how close it was to the shower transition already. The door and window trim in both bathrooms is the only small trim in the house.
But look at that picture... You can't even tell. Just that 3 or 4 feet or so extra distance from the hallway and I think the trim in the bathroom actually might look just a little bigger.
And I think that because it's all caulked and painted up right now, the offset of the trim from the jambs and the bulk of the jamb itself give it the illusion of being wider than it actually is too.
I don't think anybody would ever notice that the trim in both bathrooms is smaller than the trim in the rest of the house unless I told them.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
But what was that border along the ceiling? Wallpaper?
Sorry... must have caught you pre-edit and missed that question, Sigs.
Yeah. That was a roll of wallpaper I got for .50 at a Goodwill out in Illinois years back. I mean like YEARS back before they got greedy, put all their great stuff on eBay and Amazon when the employees weren't taking it for themselves and they didn't jack up the prices on what's left for the stores by 3 times. I barely even go there anymore these days, and only for jeans and belts when I do. I can literally buy clearance shirts at Walmart brand new for cheaper than most of their used t-shirts by quite a bit these days and the "half-price" days are the only time I ever go and it's not even competitive anymore.
Anyway... I loved how the border matched my shower curtain and the wood trim of everything at the time. It really was a nice looking border. But that had to go...
Until about 2 months ago, that border is the only "work" I ever did in that bathroom besides removing all of that failing caulk, doing it all up proper with backer rod and re-caulking the entire bath/shower area.
If I ever want to do that bathroom up totally proper, I'm going to break down one day and tile the walls.
But I know if I do that, I'm completely opening myself up to all of the horrors that lie underneath that vinyl, and I'm going to end up gutting the walls completely and either replace them with concrete board or that new awesome Space Age shit that is impervious to water and mold.
It's so cool and a shame that I'd probably have to put a lean on the house to buy it for myself. It's infinitely easier to work with than any other bathroom material I've ever used because you can score it and cut it with nothing but a straight edge and a utility knife without making any big production out of it or making a mess.
Instead of having to cut stuff outside and bring it in after you're done making the mess out there, you can just have have all of these super-dense, but super-lightweight foam pieces right outside the room and just cut them to size on the spot, put them up and there's zero mess to clean up. The only time it ever gets potentially messy at all is when you bust out the tube of sealent that goes with it for all the corners and joints, before you put your tile over it.
You could make your own if you wanted to, but they also sell prefabed specialty pieces for things like recesses in your shower wall for things like soap and razors made out of the same material and already glued together and sealed, ready to fit right between your studs.
I'm going to get the name Sigs. You should check that out if you ever remodel a bathroom yourself or know somebody who is considering doing it. If I could afford it, I'd be using it myself.
....
There it is. Kerdi-Board
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Schluter-Systems-0-5-in-x-32-in-x-48-in-Kerdi
-Board-Polystyrene-Foam-Backer-Board/4712901
I'd installed this once with my friend's dad. Amazing stuff.
But you're out of your mind if you think I'm going to pay $48 for a 4 foot by 32in length of anything that isn't gold plated.
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Hey Sigs... on a completely unrelated topic. I just recently got some health insurance information that I found quite interesting.
The officially gave us the 6 month notice, 3 weeks late. When we are up for recertification, they're going to be looking back to the beginning of the year. They're not starting the clock on re-certify date, and they have no intention of giving you a 6 months grace period like they do for food-stamps when you no longer qualify for similar reasons, such as a very high unemployment rate going down to a level that no longer allows you food stamps unless you have kids or are over 55 years old.
I kind of figured all of that would be the case. I wasn't sure exactly when it would happen, but I assumed it would be right after mid-terms.
That's not the interesting thing...
I was always under the impression that the amount of work you had to do was 20 hours per week to keep things like this... or volunteer work, or job training, etc.
That's not the case at all. I mean, it does say that is one of the requirement for sure, but it's far from the only one that keeps you qualified.
The one that is interesting to me is where it says that over any 4 week (monthly) period, you're expected to earn at least $580. And then they go on to explain that this is equivalent to the national minimum wage of $7.25 at 80 hours per week. And they state this in such a way where they're very clearly saying that in leiu of working 20 hours per week, so long as you are earning at least $580 per month you are qualified. (I will have to verify if this is Gross or Net... but I would have to think it's Gross since the net could change so much from person to person).
This changes EVERYTHING!
If I end up going back to retail and/or staying there for any signifigant amount of time, I've got nobody to blame but myself.
If I cannot gross $6,960 in 365 days doing literally ANYTHING on my own, I probably don't deserve that insurance.
This may end up being a blessing in disguise, is kind of what I'm saying. I've never forced myself to go to work for myself. You've been telling me I should try that for years. And if I were to get myself back into a little better shape I'm sure I still have a few people I could reach out to that might be able to assist with that.
I'll mow lawns. I'll clean houses. I'll dog sit or walk dogs.
There's about a hundred things I could probably think of that I'd rather be doing to keep that insurance than going back to work any job where I have to deal with idiot managers and disrespectful customers.
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Wow! That is fantastic SIX.
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Out soon on a 66F day. Probably get hotter. Meds and new shoes today. I hate shoe shopping. Flat feet is no fun finding them. Then a couple of smaller things.
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All done after having my blood sugar bounce around before I grabbed something to eat. Meds and shoes got. Feel better now.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Wow! That is fantastic SIX.
The pictures or the health insurance update?
Sounds like you deserve to relax tonight. You going to watch Killers of the Flower Moon tonight?
Figured you would have mentioned if you'd watched it already.
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If nothing goes catastrophically wrong, I should have that bifold door up by nightfall.
I'm going to be cannibalizing parts from another door with new parts on the way tomorrow for the last two doors with a brand new track that "should" make installing the bedroom closets fairly easy.
I'm in the process of giving that thing a deep clean since I have the opportunity. Everything's been pulled down and wiped with microfiber. I had some glass panels from a table that somebody gave me to go over the refinished shelves, but unfortunately there were only 3 of them out of 4, and I have 4 shelves so the top shelf that nobody will ever see the top of didn't get that glass protection. I think there is some "gunk" up there I'm going to have to get my step ladder back up to give a good wipe down. After that I'll Windex the glass panels and get them back in place, and then I'll start the door.
I will have pictures. I just found some pictures of what that linen closet and the entire hallway up there looked like when I bought the house and just began working up there. These are pictures that I would have been posting here in the threads where me and Wish and JO would get together almost every night and BS.
WOW. They almost look alien to me. It's like a parallel world where this house was a complete piece of trash.
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Alright...
Moment of truth. No putting it off any longer because nothing else is left in the way of it. It's all cleared out and clean up and ready for the door to be hung.
Fingers crossed it goes smoothly, because I'm going to have some awesome truly before/after pictures on this one from the humble beginnings of what this linen closet looked like before I got to it.
I use this thing every day, I've never once cleaned it like this, and I just forget how great it really looks after I refinished everything. It's going to be one of those "selling points" in my house like the pantry with the roll-out shelving I added. Every closet in my house is basically a work of art, and they all showcase different skills with none of them looking the same.
I do have to give the woman who lived here at some point before me credit for her creativity, even if everything was garishmaxxing to the extreme. What with all the Gay Chefs decor in the kitchen, and the 70's looking contact paper that covered every square inch of the inside of this closet.
You'll see what I mean when I post a photo of what it looked like later tonight. I swear to god, it happened every time I looked at it in real life just as it did when I saw the picture again today for the first time in years... I hear the song "Age of Aquarius" playing in my head when I see that contact paper.
"Feels like I'm drowning in the Age of Aquarius... The age of Aquarius... Aquarius! Aquarius...."
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Done.
And it was a challenge every single step of the way. Pretty much everything that could go wrong with the harware did go wrong with the hardware, but without going into any specifics on the ten or so things I needed to do in between to get it up there, it was still easier to hang than the old one was now that I know how bifold doors work. The biggest issue I had here was that the old wheel absolutely needed to be used with the track, and the way that this hardware was installed in the door is different than any modern way of doing it. A lot of thought had to go into how to solve that problem without wasting days filling the old hole with wood filler and waiting for it to dry so I could drill a much smaller hole.
That original door had ZERO play.
Solid 1/2" peg going into a hole in the bottom bracket, and a solid 1" peg going into the hole in the top of the track that you need to secure down with a screw when you get it just right. Imagine trying to put a 1/2" metal pin into a hole you can't see through the bottom of a bifold door, and then trying to line up a solid pin on top without any spring action.
It was hard enough with that spring action in play, and a proper bottom piece, but MUCH easier than the original install.
The only thing is that the original door was the most solid bifold door I've ever seen and now it's not. And I know exactly why that is. If I ever want to make it that solid again, I know exactly what I need to do. But I have zero interest in ever doing it again.
I think when I get my pictures I'll snap one of the bag of old track hardware I just found in the basement today and how glad I won't have to look at any of that garbage with the 2 new track sets coming tomorrow.
It's dark out now, but the hard work is done. I can still do all the rest of the cleanup and get my new streamlined setup put together. If I can help it at all, I'd like to get all the stuff I would use within the next 1 to 3 months in the bathroom itself now, and anything that would only be needed 3 months or more from now will be out of the room and in that linen closet. Maybe I'll even use the linen closet for some actual linen instead of just toiletries and cleaning products.
I'll have some good pictures to share later tonight.
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Lots to catch up on with you guys!
BRENDA, I hear you about flat feet and shoe shopping! I've got thst, plus EEEE width feet, and a bunion on my right foot. Once I find a brand and style that I like, I stick with it. Shoe shopping is such a trial!
Glad you noticed your blood sugar bouncing around. As I recall, you have hypoglycemia, right? I'll bet that's no fun.
SIX.
Interesting option on the insurance angle. I guess you report to the IRS as "self employed“. You might want to get a receipt book and save your copies bc I assume you'll be paid in cash? Also not sure what the contractor laws are there, but here any job worth more than $500 requires a license.
Also, don't do what our one handyman did: He did phenomenal work, a perfectionist. But had the strangest hours, would show up at 8PM and work until 3AM. That made sleeping difficult! And ultimately he bailed on a job and we couldn't get hold of him for completion. Once you get the rep for being reliable, people will be banging on your door! Also, have you thought of helping people de-hoard, or at least organize? It's light work but highly valued!
And congrats on getting that door up!
*****
Dpeaking of de- hoarding... I found dear daughter's secret stash in the front guest bedroom, where I rarely go. So we butted heads and then I sat her down in front of 8 bins ... #1 plastic, #2 plastic, glass, aluminum, general recycling, small scrap metal, and trash, and sorted thru the bags with her.
She's still mad at me.
When we get to her room, tho, I won't make her get rid of anything. It'll just be organizing so hopefully less friction.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Wow! That is fantastic SIX.
The pictures or the health insurance update?
Sounds like you deserve to relax tonight. You going to watch Killers of the Flower Moon tonight?
Figured you would have mentioned if you'd watched it already.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
I meant the pictures.
Been having a relax rest of the afternoon. I am finishing up watching something else then I will sit down and enjoy "Killers of the Flower Moon."
I will let you know what I think. I want to be good and relaxed for it.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Lots to catch up on with you guys!
BRENDA, I hear you about flat feet and shoe shopping! I've got thst, plus EEEE width feet, and a bunion on my right foot. Once I find a brand and style that I like, I stick with it. Shoe shopping is such a trial!
Glad you noticed your blood sugar bouncing around. As I recall, you have hypoglycemia, right? I'll bet that's no fun.
SIX.
Interesting option on the insurance angle. I guess you report to the IRS as "self employed“. You might want to get a receipt book and save your copies bc I assume you'll be paid in cash? Also not sure what the contractor laws are there, but here any job worth more than $500 requires a license.
Also, don't do what our one handyman did: He did phenomenal work, a perfectionist. But had the strangest hours, would show up at 8PM and work until 3AM. That made sleeping difficult! And ultimately he bailed on a job and we couldn't get hold of him for completion. Once you get the rep for being reliable, people will be banging on your door! Also, have you thought of helping people de-hoard, or at least organize? It's light work but highly valued!
And congrats on getting that door up!
*****
Dpeaking of de- hoarding... I found dear daughter's secret stash in the front guest bedroom, where I rarely go. So we butted heads and then I sat her down in front of 8 bins ... #1 plastic, #2 plastic, glass, aluminum, general recycling, small scrap metal, and trash, and sorted thru the bags with her.
She's still mad at me.
When we get to her room, tho, I won't make her get rid of anything. It'll just be organizing so hopefully less friction.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
Yeah, shopping for shoes has always been a hassle for me, SIG. I don't bother with what I call "good shoes" and just go for running shoes. Easier to find a pair that fit.
Yup, I am hypoglycemic. And for me it is hard not to notice my blood sugar bouncing. My hands start to shake and other symptoms. Definitely not fun.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SIX.
Interesting option on the insurance angle. I guess you report to the IRS as "self employed“. You might want to get a receipt book and save your copies bc I assume you'll be paid in cash? Also not sure what the contractor laws are there, but here any job worth more than $500 requires a license.
Yeah. I've got some research to do for sure here. It wouldn't surprise me if there are some limitations to what I could do without a permit. Obviously, unless I really knew people well I wouldn't be doing things like electricity for them and take money in exchange for it. I know my work is up to Cook County, IL code and exceeds code around here in many aspects, but I'm not licensed or certified in the work. It's not exactly trying to get away with doing brain surgery when you never went to medical school, but things like that I would avoid. I know I couldn't install gutters since it requires a $30 permit even just to do your own around here, and I was told by the city it's to verify that the people you're paying to do it are licensed and bonded, or that you truly are doing it on your own and not paying somebody else to do it.
As for job prices, I don't think I'd see to many that were $500. I don't have interest in doing things like half/full bathroom remodels, and literally almost anything to do with a kitchen. I couldn't make money doing that stuff with how slow and perfectionist my work is.
But I could make money doing things like painting bedrooms and hallways and bathrooms and kitchens, or sheds on the exterior, or putting poly on your fence, etc.
I love painting. And I know I'd still take a long time doing it and making everything as perfect as I could, but it's low-danger, medium exertion work that I absolutely love doing. If I were able to get a couple of painting gigs every month, that would probably be all I needed to do.
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Also, don't do what our one handyman did: He did phenomenal work, a perfectionist. But had the strangest hours, would show up at 8PM and work until 3AM. That made sleeping difficult! And ultimately he bailed on a job and we couldn't get hold of him for completion. Once you get the rep for being reliable, people will be banging on your door! Also, have you thought of helping people de-hoard, or at least organize? It's light work but highly valued!
Oh god. He did what? I know I got weird hours when I'm on my own time, but if the job isn't a 1040/W2 job where I'm scheduled to work overnight, I'm going to be there at banking hours, and only ever earlier if I wanted like some extra drying time between stuff to get it all done in one day instead of finishing it off on a 2nd day, and ONLY if you didn't immediately poo poo that idea because you've got your own life to live.
Nah... I come off like an asshole a lot here, but in real life, The Dude (usually) abides. I'm all about Don't Tread on Me, and when I interact with people in the real world I generally treat people the way that I expect people to treat me until they give me a reason to do otherwise. When it comes to customers, I do have lines, but I'm not going to come right out of the gates stepping all over their lines by inflicting my insomnia and weird sleep patterns on them.
But good lookin' out. You never know. I very well could have been somebody who desperately needed that advice that nobody ever gave him before. It's great advice.
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And congrats on getting that door up!
Thank you. Pictures to follow in the next post.
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*****
Dpeaking of de- hoarding... I found dear daughter's secret stash in the front guest bedroom, where I rarely go. So we butted heads and then I sat her down in front of 8 bins ... #1 plastic, #2 plastic, glass, aluminum, general recycling, small scrap metal, and trash, and sorted thru the bags with her.
She's still mad at me.
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Okay... This is it. I had some really good finds out of the old pile of photos for tonight's update.
First we have a piece that I like to call "Feels like I'm Drowning in the Age of Aquarius".
Isn't it beautiful?
The amount of work that went into doing that was probably only less than the amount of work it took to peel it all off and give those walls the wash down they needed before it could be repainted and those shelves could be restored.
I don't remember what I did with it, but I hope I burned that gross plastic door knob that had a needlessly porous surface that just attracted probably 30 years of people's hand grime and was half brown when it should have been white... possibly ivory if I'm being generous...
*Uuuuuugggggghhhhh....* I remember that.
Don't tell anybody... but deep down I've always suspected that if I hadn't burned that while I was drinking heavily, and it ended up in the wrong hands, it may have actually been the true origins of Covid 19.
Here's one from the stairwell, right after I'd made the panel to access the shower from behind in the hallway rather than bust a bathroom wall to get to it when I needed to. I've never had to open it and completely forget about it for years at a time, but it's always there. (I'll try to remember to take another photo from this angle now and see if you could even tell that panel is there).
And now... (Not really now... I hadn't even put the doors on the toilet cabinet or put the shelf up either, but I can't find a newer shot from this angle and possibly haven't taken one yet).
What Age of Aquarius looked like after spending a few days peeling all that stuff off everything and getting the trim down...
* Holy crap... I don't even remember patching all that wall damage up but I did it because it's perfect now and I'm quite obviously insane.
And what she looks like today after I cleaned everything up, all professional like.
Here's that shot from yesterday with the solid door on it that I said I'd add to the new photos when I took some finish shots from the same angle.
And some shots with the beautiful new door on...
And then using the rechargable led photo/motion sensitive light. The light is AWESOME. With the louvered door, it will actually turn itself on for 20 seconds even with the door closed by just walking out of the bedroom to the bathroom or back. I don't need that for myself, but the next time my old man stays the night for any reason, I'm sure he's going to love that on top of the 2 nightlights in the bathroom.
And here's my horrible, drunk, lazy paint job on the back of the old linen closet door...
I'm not going all out, but I've GOT to make that look better before I install these last two doors.
Substandard work! You're fired, 33 year old Jack!
Wowzers!
But for real... even if I did that when I was knockout drunk, I only did it because I knew that for at least the next 13 years I wasn't ever going to know that I did it.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Originally posted by Brenda:
I meant the pictures.
Been having a relax rest of the afternoon. I am finishing up watching something else then I will sit down and enjoy "Killers of the Flower Moon."
I will let you know what I think. I want to be good and relaxed for it.
Thanks, Brenda. Just saw this now.
Nice. I'm surprised you hadn't seen it until now. We were talking about that one quite a while ago.
So you're really not able to see much unless the library gets it, huh?
One of these days we got to get you real comfortable with that computer. Maybe see if we can get Second to behave like a human being for long enough to get you sailing the high seas and watching movies you want to watch when you want to watch 'em instead of having to wait 2 or 3 years to finally see them.
I hope you enjoy(ed) it.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
I meant the pictures.
Been having a relax rest of the afternoon. I am finishing up watching something else then I will sit down and enjoy "Killers of the Flower Moon."
I will let you know what I think. I want to be good and relaxed for it.
Quote:Download free movies from https://yts.gg/home
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
One of these days we got to get you real comfortable with that computer. Maybe see if we can get Second to behave like a human being for long enough to get you sailing the high seas and watching movies you want to watch when you want to watch 'em instead of having to wait 2 or 3 years to finally see them.
For example: Killers of the Flower Moon 2023 at https://yts.gg/movies/killers-of-the-flower-moon-2023
A recent movie which is still playing in theaters can also be downloaded: Disclosure Day 2026 at https://yts.gg/movies/disclosure-day-2026
You will also need a free program called qBittorrent from https://www.qbittorrent.org/ to actually download the movies.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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So, SIX, I've been looking at the before and after pictures to unravel how you managed to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. There are clues in there for me.
To me, the most obvious thing is changing the trim from the mingy 1950's contractor's trim to to wider, classy trim. And the CARE that you took to install it. I don't recall the details of how you got that trim on the stairs to fit so absolutely perfectly, but I'llbet you sweated blood.
The floors. Did you stain them? How did you get that high polish? They look absolutely fantastic.
Wall repair, paint job, and color choice. Again, very carefully done. There isn't a thing I would change. The way you finished the stairs is inspired.
Changing and painting doors, cabinets, light fixtures, mirrors etc. Classy and decorative without being either stark or fussy.
And of course decluttering and (altho I can't see it) furniture choice.
You have a decorator's eye, SIX. It's clear to me that you had an integrated picture in your mind how you wanted the house to look and were working towards that goal with each choice you made.
Bravo! Well done! And thanks for the pix and inspiration! I will never be satisfied with substandard contractors work again!
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
I meant the pictures.
Been having a relax rest of the afternoon. I am finishing up watching something else then I will sit down and enjoy "Killers of the Flower Moon."
I will let you know what I think. I want to be good and relaxed for it.
Thanks, Brenda. Just saw this now.
Nice. I'm surprised you hadn't seen it until now. We were talking about that one quite a while ago.
So you're really not able to see much unless the library gets it, huh?
One of these days we got to get you real comfortable with that computer. Maybe see if we can get Second to behave like a human being for long enough to get you sailing the high seas and watching movies you want to watch when you want to watch 'em instead of having to wait 2 or 3 years to finally see them.
I hope you enjoy(ed) it.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
You're welcome. Those other pictures are also fantastic. You have a real flair for sure.
We were talking about it quite a while ago.
Nope. My library gets in tv series faster than new movies. But that's okay. I had to finish up watching "Broken Wood". That's a little police series from down New Zealand.
Now that that is finished and going back to the library, tonight I shall start "Killers of the Flower Moon." I want to be completely uninterrupted for it. Full attention on it.
Hopefully but I'm not holding my breath. Not because of you. It's just I don't to download unknown programs and corrupt anything.
I will.
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
I meant the pictures.
Been having a relax rest of the afternoon. I am finishing up watching something else then I will sit down and enjoy "Killers of the Flower Moon."
I will let you know what I think. I want to be good and relaxed for it.Quote:Download free movies from https://yts.gg/home
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
One of these days we got to get you real comfortable with that computer. Maybe see if we can get Second to behave like a human being for long enough to get you sailing the high seas and watching movies you want to watch when you want to watch 'em instead of having to wait 2 or 3 years to finally see them.
For example: Killers of the Flower Moon 2023 at https://yts.gg/movies/killers-of-the-flower-moon-2023
A recent movie which is still playing in theaters can also be downloaded: Disclosure Day 2026 at https://yts.gg/movies/disclosure-day-2026
You will also need a free program called qBittorrent from https://www.qbittorrent.org/ to actually download the movies.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
SECOND, I do not want to do any of that. Downloading unknown programs makes me nervous.
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Out in a minute. 74F right now. Think Kipling wrote in one of his books, "Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun." Course he was writing about India.
But I am hoping to at least stay cool if I CAN'T beat the mid-day sun back.
Off to try new shoes and such. Stay cool everyone.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
I meant the pictures.
Been having a relax rest of the afternoon. I am finishing up watching something else then I will sit down and enjoy "Killers of the Flower Moon."
I will let you know what I think. I want to be good and relaxed for it.Quote:Download free movies from https://yts.gg/home
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
One of these days we got to get you real comfortable with that computer. Maybe see if we can get Second to behave like a human being for long enough to get you sailing the high seas and watching movies you want to watch when you want to watch 'em instead of having to wait 2 or 3 years to finally see them.
For example: Killers of the Flower Moon 2023 at https://yts.gg/movies/killers-of-the-flower-moon-2023
A recent movie which is still playing in theaters can also be downloaded: Disclosure Day 2026 at https://yts.gg/movies/disclosure-day-2026
You will also need a free program called qBittorrent from https://www.qbittorrent.org/ to actually download the movies.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
SECOND, I do not want to do any of that. Downloading unknown programs makes me nervous.
To be completely fair here, I can vouch that he's not telling you anything that I wouldn't have told you myself if you were interested in doing any of this.
But given that you're in Canada, that could make things different. For decades here in the US they seem to have given up going after anybody for pirating music or movies or TV shows or games or really anything at all, and have directed their focus instead on taking down the people who provide the services.
That could change at any time, and I do suppose they have a record of everything we've ever downloaded somewhere, so if they ever get desperate enough for cash they might start going back through everyone's download history and stealing all their property away for them to pay for all that stuff they though that they were getting for free.
We really should get you a smart TV or an Amazon Fire Stick though.
There are a ton of free and legal programs on there that offer movies and TV shows without any worry of downloading any possibly sketchy programs or getting yourself put on a list. My aunt was in heaven when I set all that up for her and I couldn't believe how easy it was to get her to cancel the Cable TV subscription with all those programs.
The drawback of using these services instead of downloading specific movies and shows you want to watch now is that you're only able to watch what they've currently got up for you to watch, and it could be a long time until the movie you want to watch comes up as a freebie. But if you used something like this in tandem with your Library rentals I think you'd really enjoy it.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, SIX, I've been looking at the before and after pictures to unravel how you managed to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. There are clues in there for me.
To me, the most obvious thing is changing the trim from the mingy 1950's contractor's trim to to wider, classy trim. And the CARE that you took to install it. I don't recall the details of how you got that trim on the stairs to fit so absolutely perfectly, but I'llbet you sweated blood.
If you mean the big white piece to the right of the steps with the quarter round on it, I can't actually take credit for that. The quarter round wasn't on the top of it and that was an addition I made, but the rest of it was already there. But it was all wood color, so the bitch of a time that I had there was staining and putting poly down on the steps while painting that trim and the faces of the steps white and not having any bleed-over from the two. To get that to happen as you see it now was actually two rounds of work that I did on those stairs, maybe 6 or 7 years apart.
And that trim...
Boy. What a steal that was. I only wish I'd bought more of it, because I bought enough to do every door and window in the house, including the basement, but I'd bought all of that a few years before fixing the gaping hole in the porch and even having any idea about how I was going to change the walls to keep water out and what sort of windows that would entail and how much extra trim I would have needed. I didn't even think about the porch when making that purchase. So now all I have left to do the doors in the basement is the old trim that's still up in the rafters of my garage. That trim was nicer than any of hte original trim in the rest of the house though, so if it wasn't too badly water damaged and it cleans up nice, it should be fine.
But yeah... That trim and the baseboard were all on clearance for some reason. And if memory serves, I bought all of that back before I started my last job, so until I used up the rest of it in the porch I was sitting on that stuff for about 7 years before it was all finally used. I was getting 8ft lenghts of the door/window trim for something crazy like .95 cents each, and the 10 or 12ft lengths of the baseboard were only like $1.25 each.
There were only 3 pieces that I had to pay full price for, and it's only because I didn't want to go to the trouble of joining two pieces in 3 different spots. One for the tops of both sides of the overlook, and a third for the top piece above the two stairwells. Those were something like $10 or $11 each. I really should have bought 4 of them to do the piece that goes under the sill for the large multi-pane living room window after tearing out the crap that was there before, but because there is likely always going to be a couch sitting right in front of that I just joined two cheap pieces there. But the work is so good you can't even tell I did that. I really didn't need to have one piece anywhere else because you wouldn't have noticed it when I was finished, but that extra $30 or so saved me a lot of time and hassle.
I remember telling my grandma about this acquisition with pride. And the fact that I took out one of those promotional credit card deals that gave you an extra $250 on your signup bonus if you spent $1000 in the first 90 days, so when it was all said and done I told my grandma that the hardware store just paid me $75 to haul an entire house worth of trim from their store.
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The floors. Did you stain them? How did you get that high polish? They look absolutely fantastic.
Oh yeah. Just the stairs and the 2nd floor though, since the first floor living room wasn't bad. Upstairs was awful though, and that's why it was a great surprise to see it up there AFTER I bought the house when I tore up that awful carpet they hid it all with.
I made the mistake of renting out a floor sander from a local ma and pa shop and
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Heh... That reminds me...
Not that it's going to make any more floor space for me in the garage, but I'm pretty sure I have two bedrooms and a hallway full of old garbage trim that has about 12 coats of paint on it somewhere up in those rafters that I get to take down and cut into pieces and get out of my life once and for all.
In the back of my mind, I knew one way or another that stuff was never going back up in my house, but I never throw out stuff mid-job because you never know when you might need it. I learned that from my friend's dad too. Granted, he was a hoarder, but he wasn't wrong about this. Some of those final pieces I used to trim out the stair area after making my own new frames were the original small pieces I had removed 15 years ago and had sitting somewhere in my garage the entire time until 2 or 3 years ago when I was posting pictures about finishing that area off. Most of those pieces needed to be cut, coped and altered to fit, but they were the original trim that matched the rest of the living room and might have been difficult to find a suitable replacement for. If I hadn't saved those pieces all those years, that would have been another hassle and more money spent when it didn't need to be spent.
I remember helping my friend's dad fix his rental so he could sell it. His son would come after work and help out every night and on weekends and there were one or two other friends of his dad's that were all in and out of that place helping out. But somewhere along the line, somebody (I think it was my friend) threw out the old shitty looking rusty wall grates for the heat. It was those old-style ones where the heat ducts were on the wall, but right at the floor level. My grandma's house was ancient and had the same thing.
The only problem? Nobody made those things anymore. That was like throwing out a bar of gold. I actually can't remember what the ultimate solution was there, but my friend's dad knew how to fix anything and I'm sure it was alright. But do not throw out any piece of a job until the whole job is done.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
I meant the pictures.
Been having a relax rest of the afternoon. I am finishing up watching something else then I will sit down and enjoy "Killers of the Flower Moon."
I will let you know what I think. I want to be good and relaxed for it.Quote:Download free movies from https://yts.gg/home
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
One of these days we got to get you real comfortable with that computer. Maybe see if we can get Second to behave like a human being for long enough to get you sailing the high seas and watching movies you want to watch when you want to watch 'em instead of having to wait 2 or 3 years to finally see them.
For example: Killers of the Flower Moon 2023 at https://yts.gg/movies/killers-of-the-flower-moon-2023
A recent movie which is still playing in theaters can also be downloaded: Disclosure Day 2026 at https://yts.gg/movies/disclosure-day-2026
You will also need a free program called qBittorrent from https://www.qbittorrent.org/ to actually download the movies.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
SECOND, I do not want to do any of that. Downloading unknown programs makes me nervous.
To be completely fair here, I can vouch that he's not telling you anything that I wouldn't have told you myself if you were interested in doing any of this.
But given that you're in Canada, that could make things different. For decades here in the US they seem to have given up going after anybody for pirating music or movies or TV shows or games or really anything at all, and have directed their focus instead on taking down the people who provide the services.
That could change at any time, and I do suppose they have a record of everything we've ever downloaded somewhere, so if they ever get desperate enough for cash they might start going back through everyone's download history and stealing all their property away for them to pay for all that stuff they though that they were getting for free.
We really should get you a smart TV or an Amazon Fire Stick though.
There are a ton of free and legal programs on there that offer movies and TV shows without any worry of downloading any possibly sketchy programs or getting yourself put on a list. My aunt was in heaven when I set all that up for her and I couldn't believe how easy it was to get her to cancel the Cable TV subscription with all those programs.
The drawback of using these services instead of downloading specific movies and shows you want to watch now is that you're only able to watch what they've currently got up for you to watch, and it could be a long time until the movie you want to watch comes up as a freebie. But if you used something like this in tandem with your Library rentals I think you'd really enjoy it.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
That is the other thing. What is offered down there in the way of streaming can be different up here.
My poor old tv is good enough for now as I spend enough money on replacing things and trying to get new things like a freaking couch.
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Welp, computer temp now reads 31C which is 92F and I am glad to be indoors.
Silly me went to the library to take back "Brokenwood" only to discover it wasn't in my backpack. I could have sworn I put it in but got back and there it was on the kitchen table right where I had put it last night. Ugh!
Though while I was rooting for the DVDs in my backpack, I did find a hole in the bottom of it. Something else to replace. *sigh*
I don't know if I should blame stuff like that on my memory or just say eff it and ignore it.
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Originally posted by Brenda:
That is the other thing. What is offered down there in the way of streaming can be different up here.
My poor old tv is good enough for now as I spend enough money on replacing things and trying to get new things like a freaking couch.
When you say old though, how old are we talking?
It's a flat screen and not one of those old heavy Tube TVs, right?
If it's got the same HDMI port on the side or the back somewhere, you wouldn't need a new TV.
That's what the fire sick is for. Think of it like attaching a VCR or DVD player to your TV and switching the inputs to be able to use them to watch your movies.
But instead of a large box that you put discs or tapes into, it's just a little device that's about twice the size of those thumb drives we had you backing up your book to that's just sticking out of your HDMI port, and plugged into your wall for power. That's it.
Basically, for the price of $20 to $40 USD depending on if you buy it on sale or not, you turn your old TV into a smart TV, but only when you switch the input to the device like you would switch to your DVD player or your VCR in your TV options.
Now you connect that thing to your wireless internet you're already paying for, and you can watch practically any basic cable station in real time on an app called "Pluto TV". Or watch YouTube videos on your TV. And there are some other streaming apps you can easily put on the stick for free that will allow you to stream any movies and shows they have on hand, with the only catch being they're going to interrupt the movie or show with commercials of their own. But it's usually quite a bit less commercials than if you were watching a movie on regular TV. And I'm pretty sure they even have some music apps on there that may have different genres playing on a loop and maybe you find a station or two you like that you could just have playing in the background while doing chores or whatever.
Something to think about. A $40 investment could be a HUGE upgrade to your television experience, and since you're already paying for the cable internet connection, there would be zero additional monthly payments for anything after you're all hooked up.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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I think I need to go picture hunting again...
I didn't feel like working on any doors today, but I haven't been able to really stop the momentum either, and haven't found any reason to.
I gave the master bedroom the 4-Star treatment it should have gotten before my dad went on vacation. It's ready now.
Microfiber dust top to bottom and a wipedown on the baseboards and the floor along the walls and the furniture legs with the fiber cloth before using my seldom-used 2nd-floor Shark vac. This thing is so awesome. Stick vac with near limitless maneuverability. If anything, I do want to move my large dresser right about 3 inches just so I can get the thing all the way in the corner back there in the future, but there's not a speck of dust on any furniture, shelving in the closet or the floor now.
Everything is out of the closet now except for shoe boxes on the very tippy top shelf, my backpack and gym bag on the other shelf, and only hung clothing that had a hanger. What wasn't thrown out already now or I hadn't thought of a better home yet that isn't going back in there is in the small bedroom now with the rest of the stuff I need to go through before getting more down from the attic.
I would like to get rid of everything in the two garbage bags or get rid of one thing to replace any one thing that I keep from those bags. And then on top of it I would like to get rid of at least 20% of the stuff that has a home. I'm tired of having just enough room for everything until it's bursting at the seams. I'm sure half of those clothes I haven't worn in at least 10 years. Maybe 1/3rd of them haven't even been worn in 2 decades. If I haven't gotten an office job by now, I don't need 7 days worth of work slacks and dress shirts. I don't need 4 suits. I don't need 8 ties. I don't need 3 pairs of dress shoes. I don't need 20 shirts that have holes in them or paint on them.
That kind of thing...
This is the best part about doing all the work the way I do it. I don't deep clean often, and the layer of dust on everything in that room was pretty awful, but when I clean it up everything looks as good as it did the day that I finished painting it all who knows how many years ago. Except for a brief few years around high school when my step dad was running the house and did a lot of fixups himself, I haven't ever lived in a house where you could spend an entire week deep cleaning everything and it still didn't look like shit.
It was also cool not seeing any spider webs or the like up on the ceilings, even in the closet above the shelving I put up there. That stuff mostly keeps to the basement and crawl space, even in a very wide open planned house like this, fortunately. The highest thing I really ever have to dust for cobwebs and spider webs outside of a rare one in the living room is the overlook at the bottom of the kitchen.
I get a little bit by the dresser next to the A/C unit, but that's only because I didn't go all out making a perfect seal when I put this tiny one in to replace that really nice one I had that died on me.
If I find some of the before pics of that master bedroom closet, I'll have some good before/after pics of that as well later tonight hopefully. It's cool that it's the only closet on this floor that was done and I didn't have to do any work on, only needed to have all the crap that doesn't belong there removed and about 10 minutes of cleanup it looks like I just finished it all over again.
I think I'm going to do the hallway now. Floor is clean, but those baseboards could use a good wipe down among other things. I'll probably do that anywhere I can get to it in the small bedroom too. I vacced anything I could get to just the other night, but I didn't wipe down any walls or boards or nothing in there yet just because I can't get to about 60% of the walls and ceiling without a hassle at the moment.
:smokin
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Yeah...
No actual Work work done today, but when you get results like these after cleaning it almost feels as if some did.
First I remembered to take another shot of the bathroom from the proper angle where you can see how the access-panel to the shower worked out. That shot is from today, and once I put that in and painted it with the rest of the wall, I've not had to use it to get back in there, so I can't say with certainty the claims that you can do it without screwing up the paint job are legit or not. Hopefully I'll never have to know. 
Also... That feeling you get when you realize that two of the four shoe boxes you had hoarded away weren't a lie.
Yup... GarishMaxxing.... TO THE EXTREME!!!
I totally forgot they did that to the accent wall in the master bedroom.
How about that classy trim, huh? At least 12 coats of paint on that. I can't wait to throw it all out now.
Yuck...
So much better now...
(And if you look at the bottom left corner where the door meets the wall, you can see how I ended the trim on both sides of where the bifold door sits when they're closed. I did that by cutting a 45 angle, then putting another small 45 degree triangle the other way to get the thin/top part of the trim running vertically down into the floor, parallel to both the front and back of the door. I did this in the small bedroom for the closet as well).
And I lied about the cobwebs, apparently. The camera sees all...
"He's got Diabetes eyes...."
Guess I'm not done with the step ladder today. 
And I double checked... just in case anybody is playing hide and seek in the closet, the door was painted inside too. We'll just pretend we didn't see how sloppy I got with the paint on the back though. I never noticed that until today either.
And a preview of what's to come...
My god...
Not just the clown colors... but I forgot until just now that 2/3rds of the windows in this house didn't have any jambs or trim at all and were just plastered in. I ripped every window sill out of the 2nd floor windows and made my own before putting the new jambs and trim around around all of them. Had to do that for 2 windows on the 1st floor too.
Down on the 1st floor though, I took a shortcut and just made blocks to attach to the ends of the existing window sill, rounded them all down to match the original sill with my belt sander in the garage, then brad nailed and glued the hell out of them before giving them the wood putty treatment and you can't even tell they all weren't one solid piece now. Might have actually been just as much work to do it that way, but you never know things like that until you try them out.
I'm so glad I took all of these pictures.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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OOPS... I think maybe I broke the page with the pictures. I hope it's just a hiccup. Sorry about that if I did.
ETA:
No... it's fine for me. Looks like it just needs to all be downloaded and it's staying in your cache so when you reload the page after all the images are finally up they all pop super quick on my end. I had to reload the page once or twice when it stalled until that happened though. I'll try to remember to downsize all of them going forward.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Hey Second...
I know you're creep stalking in here and seeing all of this. One might even think that your quick willingness to help Brenda out in getting her fit for her Pirate hat could even have been a passive-aggressive threat, right?
"I'm watching you, Jack..."
I know you are, buddy. I know you are.
Hey man...
You can tell me I do good work and that you're envious of my talent. It's okay, dude. Nobody would hold it against you, except for maybe Ted Bundy Clone, but we both know he's got absolutely nothing to bring to any table and is worth just ignoring about 99% of the time anyhow, don't we?
And besides... It would be the first time you've ever told the truth on this website.
What could it hurt?
Oh... and trust me dude. I've already thought this well out in advance man. When I even get an inkling to put this house on the market I for damn sure ain't ever going to mention that I'm doing it here on this website. That becomes a completely compartmentalized part of my life with distinct lines between us, just like a lot of things ended up being over the years after you and Ted Bundy Clone's abhorrent behaviors.
One day I'll just run out of major projects to do around here I'll do a little celebratory jig with Sigs and Brenda, and then barring any catastrophe in the future, I'll never mention my house again. And 10 years later I might still be here or I might be living in a different state.
It's cute that you are on the other side of that screen saving every photo I put up here to that special folder you've got of me on your hard drive. Flattering, really.
I wonder... do you keep copies as well. Oh tell me you do, lover. Tell me that I mean that much to you, my darling.
I know that in your mind and in your heart that Donald J. Trump will always be your number one and there's no coming between that. But I couldn't live another day knowing that I wasn't at least worth backing up all my photos to that special thumb drive of yours.
You know the one I'm talking about.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Nice...
Still not having any immediate desire to work on any more doors, but still itching to get work done, I've made a dent in the de-hoarding in the small bedroom. And that's after making sure that the only stuff left in the master bedroom that doesn't belong there is all the clothes that have homes that I need to go through.
The same can now be said for both the linen closet and the bathroom/cabinets too. Nothing in any of those places that I don't need or won't eventually need anymore. Really, come to think of it, I could say the same now for the pantry and coat closet, the living room and about 80% of the kitchen cabinets too. And nothing right now is out of place in any of them except for some dishes in the sink I need to wash. The room right in the basement doesn't have anything in it aside from the fact it's a great place to throw down a tarp and some horses and do work in a comfortable environment.
I went through everything left in my free after rebate stuff that isn't tool/power tool related, and photographed everything I'm not keeping so I can send that out and see if anybody wants it before it all goes to goodwill. (I think I'm actually going to see if the small thrift shop I noticed not to far from me wants it first. It will give me an excuse to go in there and see what they're all about).
I will go through several bags of various bits and blades and other stuff when I get out to the garage to really do that dehoard and re-org, but I'm still not even considering it with the current temps.
I threw out some stuff too, and I've already actually brought down 3 more tech-related boxes from the attic and staged them in my pile for whenever I get to going through all of that stuff.
Everything still in there is moved FAR away from the closet so I won't have anything pissing me off by being in the way when nothing goes right as I'm trying to put them up.
We get a few day break I believe starting tomorrow from the heat. I am going to try to at least get the front mowed and run some errands. Maybe I'll do the back too if it's not too bad and just get it all out of the way so I can start doing the sanding projects I wanted to do outside. I want to make the most of my nice days.
Maybe I'll hold off on the back yard though. Trash day is coming up, and I really should do what I can to get as much trash out of that back room in the basement, even if I don't take any real time to sort and organize what I'm not throwing away yet.
Oh....
And speaking of the basement, I had one of my huge totes I got from my Grandma that was full at one point of all these various things I'd bought for the house like all the soft-close hinges and oil rubbed bronze hardware, and flapper switches/outlets/decorative plates, oil rubbed bronze hinges and door knobs and who knows what else that at one point was so overstuffed there was probably 3 inches over the brim keeping the lid from closing. I went through that last night before drilling the hole in the door and now it's only about half full and the lid has no problems closing on it.
So much stuff I got for free or on ultra-cheap clearance or just a really great sale price over the last 10 years that I knew I would eventually get to.
And now I get to look in that box and see how little there is left to still put up. And 1/3rd of what is in there easily is just extra pieces that probably would only get used on whatever cabinetry ends up in the 2nd bathroom one day.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
That is the other thing. What is offered down there in the way of streaming can be different up here.
My poor old tv is good enough for now as I spend enough money on replacing things and trying to get new things like a freaking couch.
When you say old though, how old are we talking?
It's a flat screen and not one of those old heavy Tube TVs, right?
If it's got the same HDMI port on the side or the back somewhere, you wouldn't need a new TV.
That's what the fire sick is for. Think of it like attaching a VCR or DVD player to your TV and switching the inputs to be able to use them to watch your movies.
But instead of a large box that you put discs or tapes into, it's just a little device that's about twice the size of those thumb drives we had you backing up your book to that's just sticking out of your HDMI port, and plugged into your wall for power. That's it.
Basically, for the price of $20 to $40 USD depending on if you buy it on sale or not, you turn your old TV into a smart TV, but only when you switch the input to the device like you would switch to your DVD player or your VCR in your TV options.
Now you connect that thing to your wireless internet you're already paying for, and you can watch practically any basic cable station in real time on an app called "Pluto TV". Or watch YouTube videos on your TV. And there are some other streaming apps you can easily put on the stick for free that will allow you to stream any movies and shows they have on hand, with the only catch being they're going to interrupt the movie or show with commercials of their own. But it's usually quite a bit less commercials than if you were watching a movie on regular TV. And I'm pretty sure they even have some music apps on there that may have different genres playing on a loop and maybe you find a station or two you like that you could just have playing in the background while doing chores or whatever.
Something to think about. A $40 investment could be a HUGE upgrade to your television experience, and since you're already paying for the cable internet connection, there would be zero additional monthly payments for anything after you're all hooked up.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
When my mum bought it going on 29years ago it was considered a flat screen. So no HDMI port on the back. Just connections for VCR and DVD player. Would have to be a really new tv to do what you are talking about.
Man, your pictures of all the work you are putting into your house look fine.
You should be really proud of yourself.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
When my mum bought it going on 29years ago it was considered a flat screen. So no HDMI port on the back. Just connections for VCR and DVD player. Would have to be a really new tv to do what you are talking about.
Not going to judge because Lord knows I've got more than enough of my own quirks and eccentricities of my own, particularly regarding technology, but I think you're really missing out by not upgrading.
I've only ever bought one flat-screen TV in my life, and that was a 32" Sony to replace the 27" Sony that my brother had at his apartment and I spider-webbed on him with my fist after he had taken my computer off the ground about an inch and slammed it into the ground. We could get pretty heated with each other and do stupid stuff, then I'd feel absolutely terrible about it later.
But anyway... That happened before I bought this house Brenda. 15 years ago. That TV has since found its way back to me and is now the TV in my master bedroom. It's got 3 HDMI ports and I've got an Amazon Fire Stick in it.
I'm pretty sure that brand new monitor you bought would be able to use the fire stick without any problems. Literally any used flat screen TV that came out in the last 20 years should have them. You know what they look like now. If you ever see a flat screen that's around the size you think you'd like at your apartment when you're out at Goodwill you might want to check for at least one HDMI port and it should be a pretty light carry for you back home.
Even if you decide not to go through with it for some reason, it could be tucked in the closet and be a very cheap backup monitor for your computer in case the good one you just bought breaks. I'd imagine you could get one in the 35" range for $20 now, used. There's so many of them out there now I've seen people throw out perfectly good smaller ones and not even bothering to take them to goodwill.
Even your DVDs should look quite a bit better on a flat screen, and certainly any HD channels you get on the antenna will look much better. And with the internet you already pay for it opens up so many more viewing possibilities for you too without any additional cost beyond a smart TV and/or a firestick in the HDMI port.
Just something to consider.
Quote:
Man, your pictures of all the work you are putting into your house look fine.
Thanks. Yeah. Gettin' 'er done now. There so many small finishing steps that I never took that I'm knocking out pretty quickly here.
I still technically don't have a single room done because I have to get touchup paint for that really expensive stuff I used upstairs in all 3 of the colors and over the next few weeks I need to sand down and spray paint all the vents, but the Master Bedroom is otherwise done now, along with the hallway. Small Bedroom will be in the same state just awaiting a few paint touchups once this closet door gets installed and I make a solid "door" for the cool little trap door to hide things that somebody made in that closet that needs a really nice top to it. I'm also going to make the box inside really fancy instead of just having things lying on top of the ceiling drywall in the basement.
It's just so cool right now being able to do these small things that really don't take so much effort along with a deep clean of a room and finally feel like some real things are finally getting done.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Niiiice!
I found the Atari 5200 that my brother gave me years back. We never knew what happened to the one we had when we were kids after the controllers went bad, but he managed to pick one up that was working with good controllers and 3 or 4 of the games we had and a few we didn't. I haven't looked in there in probably 10 years and didn't realize how nice it all looks. Brand new, practically. Box is in pretty decent shape for being over 40 years old now too.
The best part is it looks like he also had bought some sort of converter for it too, since depending on how old the unit was it either only has co-ax or REALLY ancient connectors on TVs that were from before I was born where you'd screw two phillips head screws on the back of the TV into these connectors and that had a switch box where you'd select whether it played on channel 3 or channel 4, because depending on where you lived chances are 1 of those two were free.
I have a piece of old tech no longer necessary in my current TV setup I've been meaning to remove from the equation and if this thing works with the converter on my TV it deserves a spot front and center under there. My old man will get a real kick out of that.
Not going to get my hopes up though. I've had that thing in my attic for years under pretty extreme temps. Hopefully I didn't screw it up.
Fingers crossed.
Oh... no more pictures tonight, but I found something that my brother gave me years ago that I think any Firefly fan might appreciate.
And I've decided that the very sturdy but pretty beat up book shelf that used to be in my Grams living room is going to get the sand down and high-gloss white treatment. I'm going to put that on the opposite side of the TV stand from the curio cabinet where there's a lot of empty space and quite a few neat and tight looking cables all along that wall coming from the corner table and the router to the back of the TV stand. I could hide most of that with this piece. I've found some of my old books that I can put up there, and I can also put the limited library of games that I've still got up there for various systems too. The living room is so wide that even when I get that 75" TV I want and put it on the new shelf I'm going to make to put on top of that TV stand, there will still be plenty of room for that bookshelf without it looking cramped on that side. I really like it because it's not stupid oversized like an old IKEA one I had that went damn near to the ceiling. It's probably only about 3.5 feet tall.
That will be one more huge thing out of the garage, needlessly taking up space for years. At least it was on rollers though. I've had both of the large hope chests that I took, as well as the bookshelf and a few smaller things sitting on top of the base of an old projection screen TV so I could roll it around and move it out of my way when I needed something behind it. I'm sick of looking at that 9 foot tall pile of garbage.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
When my mum bought it going on 29years ago it was considered a flat screen. So no HDMI port on the back. Just connections for VCR and DVD player. Would have to be a really new tv to do what you are talking about.
Not going to judge because Lord knows I've got more than enough of my own quirks and eccentricities of my own, particularly regarding technology, but I think you're really missing out by not upgrading.
I've only ever bought one flat-screen TV in my life, and that was a 32" Sony to replace the 27" Sony that my brother had at his apartment and I spider-webbed on him with my fist after he had taken my computer off the ground about an inch and slammed it into the ground. We could get pretty heated with each other and do stupid stuff, then I'd feel absolutely terrible about it later.
But anyway... That happened before I bought this house Brenda. 15 years ago. That TV has since found its way back to me and is now the TV in my master bedroom. It's got 3 HDMI ports and I've got an Amazon Fire Stick in it.
I'm pretty sure that brand new monitor you bought would be able to use the fire stick without any problems. Literally any used flat screen TV that came out in the last 20 years should have them. You know what they look like now. If you ever see a flat screen that's around the size you think you'd like at your apartment when you're out at Goodwill you might want to check for at least one HDMI port and it should be a pretty light carry for you back home.
Even if you decide not to go through with it for some reason, it could be tucked in the closet and be a very cheap backup monitor for your computer in case the good one you just bought breaks. I'd imagine you could get one in the 35" range for $20 now, used. There's so many of them out there now I've seen people throw out perfectly good smaller ones and not even bothering to take them to goodwill.
Even your DVDs should look quite a bit better on a flat screen, and certainly any HD channels you get on the antenna will look much better. And with the internet you already pay for it opens up so many more viewing possibilities for you too without any additional cost beyond a smart TV and/or a firestick in the HDMI port.
Just something to consider.Quote:
Man, your pictures of all the work you are putting into your house look fine.
Thanks. Yeah. Gettin' 'er done now. There so many small finishing steps that I never took that I'm knocking out pretty quickly here.
I still technically don't have a single room done because I have to get touchup paint for that really expensive stuff I used upstairs in all 3 of the colors and over the next few weeks I need to sand down and spray paint all the vents, but the Master Bedroom is otherwise done now, along with the hallway. Small Bedroom will be in the same state just awaiting a few paint touchups once this closet door gets installed and I make a solid "door" for the cool little trap door to hide things that somebody made in that closet that needs a really nice top to it. I'm also going to make the box inside really fancy instead of just having things lying on top of the ceiling drywall in the basement.
It's just so cool right now being able to do these small things that really don't take so much effort along with a deep clean of a room and finally feel like some real things are finally getting done.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
Well, you the story. Short on money and for a couple or three years my tv was in storage. When I got it out I wasn't sure it would even work. And like I said it was high tech for the time.
I will admit I have been looking because I
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Out in a bit but my area is still sitting in the mid 80F. Has to be. At least four temperature readings were broken in province yesterday. In the valley and into the Interior.
28C, so yeah. 86F.
DVDs to go back to the library are actually in my backpack. And a couple of small things to do.
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Hey, SIX.
I started watching "Killers of the Flower Moon." I like it. So many parallels to so many things. Will set up a thread later.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Well, you the story. Short on money and for a couple or three years my tv was in storage. When I got it out I wasn't sure it would even work. And like I said it was high tech for the time.
Yeah... I know how it is. I almost finally bought myself a flat screen back around April, but my buddy told me the one I wanted was going to be too big for my room, so I hesitated... I checked out the size a few days later, not really worried about it because the sale was going on for another 3 weeks, but when I went back 3 days later after confirming that the TV was not too big for my room, they were sold out and never got restocked until the sale was over. It was a 75" TV for only $309. Oh well...
If you don't count that replacement TV I bought my brother, the last TV I bought was a 320lb rear-projection TV. I've always regretted throwing that out with the last de-hoard because I've never had a TV as big as that since. The picture on the 40-something inch that one of my brothers gave me when they got a huge TV is higher definition than the rear projection was, but not by much and it's just so much smaller. That final generation of rear-projection screens put out by Hitachi were 720p and really nice looking.
Soon I'll get a bigger screen, but for about 6 or 7 years now I've been working with a downgrade myself.
Quote:
I will admit I have been looking because I'm just not sure when it will blow. The boxes on flat screens do talk about HDMI but I would have to look really close at the display models to see.
Not a bad idea. If you've got a storage closet, you may want to hold on to the old one as a backup for a while, but eventually you might just want to find a 2nd cheap flat screen as a backup instead. Once you finally do make the switch over I don't think you're going to want to ever go back.
Quote:
Like I said it looks great. And you are making me jealous because there are things that I would love to be able to do. I've always wanted to own a house just to know it is mine. But that's just me.
Oh... I don't mean to do that. Sorry.
I think we've got quite a lot in common on certain things, particularly the independent streak, so I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong to feel that way.
But I am about to go outside and spend almost 3 hours mowing my lawn today before I get to pulling or spraying for any weeds. And I get to look at how the moles trashed all that work I did on the landscaping last year. And my beautiful refinished driveway I did about 6 years ago eventually got all the cracks back and the finish is finally starting to peel off, so I've got to go spend about $400 to resurface that, probably next summer (I won't be doing all the crack filling this time since that was a huge waste of time, effort and money).
I just had a tornado roll through my area last month and the only reason my house is standing is probably because of how the damage split like Moses parting the water and houses on either side of me (in front or behind me) suffered major damage, had trees fall on their houses, or had their entire houses destroyed to the point they need a teardown and rebuild.
Now granted, I don't live in anything remotely close to a user-friendly property here, and I have to deal with some things that most people never have to think about in their lives, but even when none of those problems exist, you've either got to fix what goes wrong when it does yourself, or have enough money to pay somebody who's going to overcharge you to do it.
You don't even want to know how difficult it is to swap out a kitchen faucet, for example. It's really not fun laying backward into that cabinet while reaching up and having the bottom of the cabinet door digging into your back while you're working.
And if you don't want to do it yourself and pay somebody else, they could charge you $500 like they ch
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Well, you the story. Short on money and for a couple or three years my tv was in storage. When I got it out I wasn't sure it would even work. And like I said it was high tech for the time.
Yeah... I know how it is. I almost finally bought myself a flat screen back around April, but my buddy told me the one I wanted was going to be too big for my room, so I hesitated... I checked out the size a few days later, not really worried about it because the sale was going on for another 3 weeks, but when I went back 3 days later after confirming that the TV was not too big for my room, they were sold out and never got restocked until the sale was over. It was a 75" TV for only $309. Oh well...
If you don't count that replacement TV I bought my brother, the last TV I bought was a 320lb rear-projection TV. I've always regretted throwing that out with the last de-hoard because I've never had a TV as big as that since. The picture on the 40-something inch that one of my brothers gave me when they got a huge TV is higher definition than the rear projection was, but not by much and it's just so much smaller. That final generation of rear-projection screens put out by Hitachi were 720p and really nice looking.
Soon I'll get a bigger screen, but for about 6 or 7 years now I've been working with a downgrade myself.Quote:
I will admit I have been looking because I'm just not sure when it will blow. The boxes on flat screens do talk about HDMI but I would have to look really close at the display models to see.
Not a bad idea. If you've got a storage closet, you may want to hold on to the old one as a backup for a while, but eventually you might just want to find a 2nd cheap flat screen as a backup instead. Once you finally do make the switch over I don't think you're going to want to ever go back.Quote:
Like I said it looks great. And you are making me jealous because there are things that I would love to be able to do. I've always wanted to own a house just to know it is mine. But that's just me.
Oh... I don't mean to do that. Sorry.
I think we've got quite a lot in common on certain things, particularly the independent streak, so I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong to feel that way.
But I am about to go outside and spend almost 3 hours mowing my lawn today before I get to pulling or spraying for any weeds. And I get to look at how the moles trashed all that work I did on the landscaping last year. And my beautiful refinished driveway I did about 6 years ago eventually got all the cracks back and the finish is finally starting to peel off, so I've got to go spend about $400 to resurface that, probably next summer (I won't be doing all the crack filling this time since that was a huge waste of time, effort and money).
I just had a tornado roll through my area last month and the only reason my house is standing is probably because of how the damage split like Moses parting the water and houses on either side of me (in front or behind me) suffered major damage, had trees fall on their houses, or had their entire houses destroyed to the point they need a teardown and rebuild.
Now granted, I don't live in anything remotely close to a user-friendly property here, and I have to deal with some things that most people never have to think about in their lives, but even when none of those problems exist, you've either got to fix what goes wrong when it does yourself, or have enough money to pay somebody who's going to overcharge you to do it.
You don't even want to know how difficult it is to swap out a kitchen faucet, for example. It's really not fun laying backward into that cabinet while reaching up and having the bottom of the cabinet door digging into your back while you're working.
And if you don't want to do it yourself and pay somebod
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All done for today and my area has hit almost 90F. Just a couple of degrees lower so 88F.
Remembered the library but went out without my medical alert necklace. Remembered it when I reached the cross walk. Ugh!
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Boy... I did NOT feel well after 5 hours of yard work. I know they were rough, but not to the point I should be feeling that bad.
It turns out my damn sensor I just installed last night was trying to kill me is all.
I have no idea if any reading it's given me since insertion is even accurate.
Twice while working I went in and took glucose tabs because I knew I needed them despite the monitor saying I was around 120. By the time I was finished working, I barely had the energy to take a shower. After washing my feet, I just kind of sat in that chair with the water flowing on me for about 3 minutes before I finally found the will to stand up.
By that time, not only had I lost the signal because I was in the shower (which happens on occasion), but I got the much more rare "transmitter error; wait up to 3 hours" message. Whenever I've gotten this, it's always fixed itself before. But this time it came back online and screamed at me, telling me I was 400, which is the maximum it will even show.
I did a finger prick.
80
I did a second finger prick.
82.
Fuck you, Dexcom.
I feel great now after eating nothing but a small bag of chips. Just as good as I did before I started any work today.
Google AI did me a real solid and reminded me to shut off automated mode. Fortuately, I already had it off because I wanted to give myself a timed-release bolus for the chips and you can't do that if automated mode is on, but at least according to Google AI, my pod might have started giving me MASSIVE hits of insulin to combat the 400 reading and probably would have finally killed me.
If that's true and there isn't some sort of safety trigger that would keep the massive hits of insulin coming after an event like I laid out above, I guaranty you that people have died at the hands of Dexcom and Omnipod, and somebody is hiding it.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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SIX, glad you listened to your body and not the machine!
Also, are you drinking enough water and - just as important - eating enough SALT?
Hubby gets very fatigued and his heart starts skipping beats if not enuf salt, and I get debilitating cramps.
Be careful with yourself!
Oh yeah, and fuck Dexcom.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:. I know what you mean. Houses mean different things to different people, but for me it always meant a garden. I missed having a garden whenever I lived in an apartment, and even when we had a townhouse, altho at this point I'm like SIX: I could do with less garden AND less house.
Originally posted by Brenda:
I try to avoid the management as much as possible because they don't really do much around here. And since I've moved in and I have been here around 6years now. The first manager I don't know who she worked for but she was here a while. I told her about the oven not working, so came up and had a look. Said she get operating instructions for me. I asked her twice and she never did. She left because she got sick. Second lady worked for the actual owners of the building and she was only here a couple of years, then there was a third that worked for a property management company and she was here a couple of years. Only came in once or twice a week. There was a repair company then the left. So basically now the building is on the "fourth" property management company and they are really in the office. Signs up saying call this company about things. They only come in when they are called.
Oh, I know about all the hassle and taxes. But at times I do feel like someone is looking over my shoulder making sure I do things right. Gets me down is all.
I guess if you're going to dream of the ideal, may as well make it a smaller, newer, well built house and yard with a porch, in the city, close to doctors and pharmacies and bus line.
Now THAT sounds ideal!
We can dream, eh?
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SIX, glad you listened to your body and not the machine!
Yeah... I had to. It was either my blood sugar was low or I'm dying.
I don't eat much during the day still unless I need to, and that's still never slowed me down. But you can just tell when it's happening. I never got so low today that I started seeing "sun spots" in the center of my vision, but that's only because I felt them coming on and took action when my sensor was not doing its job before its complete failure.
Quote:
Also, are you drinking enough water and - just as important - eating enough SALT?
Probably not. I never add salt to anything, and I don't eat a lot of junk food. I should have been drinking water today instead of coffee, but the high was only 71 (YAY!) and I didn't feel that I needed it. I don't think I would have broken a sweat if it wasn't from the hypoglycemia sweats.
Quote:
Hubby gets very fatigued and his heart starts skipping beats if not enuf salt, and I get debilitating cramps.
Be careful with yourself!
Good advice. I will try to do better with both of them.
Quote:
Oh yeah, and fuck Dexcom.
I bitch about their prices, but if you're looking to meet your maker, $800 for 3 Dexcom sensors is a lot cheaper than a visit to Dr. Kevorkian.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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By the way, Sigs...
I looked back at my story and I realized that I didn't actually paint the accurate picture.
When I finally took my blood, it was after I ate the chips and gave myself a small extended bolus (over 4 hours instead of immediately).
My old finger prick sensor appears to have died for good already. I did have the one the education center gave me that I never use because it required completely different strips than I had on hand, but it also came with 10 strips. I didn't find that one until after I'd already eaten. I don't know how much time was in between, but there was surely enough time for the food to start kicking in.
I wasn't sitting in that shower doing nothing for 3 minutes at 80/82. I operate just fine in the 70's and 80s. I had to be low 50's or even in the 40's in that shower. Not the mid to low 40's because that's when I start going blind in the center of my vision, but low enough that combined with 5 hours of exercise had me not even wanting to stand up.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Off to mah jong tomorrow and a few errands after.
My area almost hit 100F this afternoon.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:. I know what you mean. Houses mean different things to different people, but for me it always meant a garden. I missed having a garden whenever I lived in an apartment, and even when we had a townhouse, altho at this point I'm like SIX: I could do with less garden AND less house.
Originally posted by Brenda:
I try to avoid the management as much as possible because they don't really do much around here. And since I've moved in and I have been here around 6years now. The first manager I don't know who she worked for but she was here a while. I told her about the oven not working, so came up and had a look. Said she get operating instructions for me. I asked her twice and she never did. She left because she got sick. Second lady worked for the actual owners of the building and she was only here a couple of years, then there was a third that worked for a property management company and she was here a couple of years. Only came in once or twice a week. There was a repair company then the left. So basically now the building is on the "fourth" property management company and they are really in the office. Signs up saying call this company about things. They only come in when they are called.
Oh, I know about all the hassle and taxes. But at times I do feel like someone is looking over my shoulder making sure I do things right. Gets me down is all.
I guess if you're going to dream of the ideal, may as well make it a smaller, newer, well built house and yard with a porch, in the city, close to doctors and pharmacies and bus line.
Now THAT sounds ideal!
We can dream, eh?
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
At this stage of the game that is all I am doing. Dreaming.
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To me, it's a little like "What would I do if I won the lottery?" Kind of pleasant. But maybe it just makes you sad.
Sorry about that, BRENDA.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Speaking of home expenses ... we just laid out a chunk of change for having the rat proofing, trapping, and cleanup/ sanitizing completed.
I saw a "before" picture of all the rat droppings around the air handler and it was NASTY. Eeeeew. But at least I know it wasn't a long standing issue bc I had the electronic filter serviced about a year ago and there was no problem then.
Thinking about how you got rid of the raccoon in your attic, SIX, and cut tree branches back to deny access. I wish I had your energy, I could have saved a bundle of $$$ doing the work myself.
Oh BTW speaking of trash trees ... the huge tree we had removed lo these many years ago was also a silver maple, and it was rotten on the inside with a squirrel nest chewed into it. I thought it was partly bc the tree was stressed being in a warm climate. I guess silver maples just generally aren't good shade trees, no matter where you are in the USA.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Looks like our temps are gonna be between 90F and 95F for the foreseeable.
Ugh!
I hate summer!
It'll be interesting to see our (yearly, cumulative) electricity bill in Aug. I'm sure glad we have solar!
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Speaking of home expenses ... we just laid out a chunk of change for having the rat proofing, trapping, and cleanup/ sanitizing completed.
Yuck. Big expense?
I've got moles ruining all my outside work every second of the day they're not sleeping. Doesn't matter how many times I've killed them, they always come back. Everybody else has them too, and nobody does anything about it.
I've just resigned myself to it now. I can fix all of that before I sell, and as long as I try to keep up with it a little bit until then, it shouldn't be that much work and money to do. I'm just done doing most of the work outside or any plans for future work beyond putting down rock on the other side of the garage and resurfacing the driveway. I'm just done with doing any outdoor projects that aren't absolutely necessary since they're just such a massive waste of time and energy.
Half the stuff I've done outside in the last 15 years looks like crap today. Even all the basement window exteriors that I caulked up and painted really nice look like crap and need to be redone, despite all my prep work and using rustoleum oil based paint. Total garbage now.
But I just proved to myself I can neglect a finished room for going on 10 years and spend 2 hours cleaning it up and it looks like I just finished working on the room yesterday.
Whoever buys this house is going to be buying a castle on the inside, with a criminal deterrent exterior. There are a few really beauitful exteriors on my block. If the Wet Bandits ever start casing out this joint, they're going to drive right on by...
Their loss.
Quote:
I saw a "before" picture of all the rat droppings around the air handler and it was NASTY. Eeeeew. But at least I know it wasn't a long standing issue bc I had the electronic filter serviced about a year ago and there was no problem then.
Thinking about how you got rid of the raccoon in your attic, SIX, and cut tree branches back to deny access. I wish I had your energy, I could have saved a bundle of $$$ doing the work myself.
I'm hoping it makes you feel better when I let you know you're misremembering some of the events on my end. I did cut branches back the year before I had the two trees cut down, but only what I could manage with that 14 foot ladder and the extension pole. In between doing that and having the tree cutters seriously cut that thing back away from my house, I had that night where the family of 6 or 7 raccoons were trying to get on my roof from that tree and I spent 3 or 4 hours terrorizing them before they finally got down and ran away (and I've never seen a raccoon on my property again, although me and two of them standing on the back of a carport somebody has across the ditch had a really good look at each other one day, and I think they remembered me with the way they both stood up as we started at each other
)And most of my attic has drywall up. It will never be opened because I don't know what raccoon shit looks like and I have no intention on finding out. It stopped smelling during the humid summers 3 or 4 years back. As far as I'm concerned, it never happened.
Quote:
Oh BTW speaking of trash trees ... the huge tree we had removed lo these many years ago was also a silver maple, and it was rotten on the inside with a squirrel nest chewed into it. I thought it was partly bc the tree was stressed being in a warm climate. I guess silver maples just generally aren't good shade trees, no matter where you are in the USA.
Oh... I don't know about everywhere, but they're AWFUL here, Sigs. Sounds like you know exactly what I'm talking about. Unfortunately, for reasons I'm sure you know, I'm not going to post those pictures, but I snapped quite a few while they were working. The tree close enough to the walkway that the roots were able to shift it slightly out of place and which was
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It just occured to me that my memory does in fact remember what racoon shit looks like, and yes... I probably do have pictures of it too. I think I blocked out that time I went into the attic above the porch after they were gone when it was about 120 degrees up there and nearly nearly fell down the pull-down ladder when I got my first whiff.
That's right. I remember being up there with gloves and cleaning whatever I could off the surface of the ceiling drywall. I never found anything I would consider evidence of urine, so I don't know where they were doing that. And with the amount of crap that was in that open area I could get to, which I assume was just from Momma alone, I don't even want to imagine how much was in the actual den itself.
*guuuuuhhhhh*
Okay... I'm done reliving this horror now.
Back in the box with you, foul memory!
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
To me, it's a little like "What would I do if I won the lottery?" Kind of pleasant. But maybe it just makes you sad.
Sorry about that, BRENDA.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
I've said to myself about what I would do with the big prize money from the lottery. It does make sad but at times it is nice to think about.
Nothing I can do about it now.
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Hey Sigs...
I was doing a little writing about a movie I saw last September called Enemy and some cool logs from a chat with Google AI regarding my theories that I wrote all the way back then on the movie.
I saw the thumbnail of a video I posted to explain how the director was using the set from the main character's rich mother (who we assume is widowed, but could be divorced... it's never discussed. And even though the movie centers around the women in his life, the father is never once mentioned or recognized in any way as if he never existed at all).
And my explanation for how the set was decorated was nearly spot on. (It could possibly be 100% spot on, but it's possible I may have read even more into the scene than either the author of the novel or the director of the movie intended. I don't believe so.)
But anyway... I wanted to show you the picture of her apartment and how they played that light to subtly let the viewer know that she was a Black Widow, and how this feeds into the hidden story of cyclical abuse and the theme of history repeating itself, and how Marx said it was a farce the 2nd time it happened.
Shadowplay....
I'm pretty sure those 3 lamps are symbolic of her three dead husbands, but I haven't yet found any confirmation of that, and it could be where I was reaching beyond their intent.
But that theory fits the story perfectly without adding any holes, and it makes a great movie even better, in my opinion. His mother is only in this one scene in that one set and may not ever be brought up again (memory has faded by now though, so it's possible maybe she also speaks to him on the phone or leaves a message on an answering machine at some point, but nothing would break in the story if her husband(s) all died at her hand, rather than natural causes or divorce, and it would also improve the story and Jake Gyllenhall's character).
ETA: I wonder if the dangling black crystals off the black lamps could also symbolic of something. Maybe just the "dangling" men naturally do being another subtle hint of what the lamps meant in that scene?
Or perhaps the 3 lights weren't just 3 husbands, but maybe she's actually a very successful serial killer and the dangles represent men she was not married to that she did just for fun on the side during 3 marriages? Lots of possibility here.
None of them necessary at all, but I do believe any one of them would make it an even better movie than it already is. Especially since the theme of spiders plays such an important role in both confusing the hell out of the audience that isn't aware they're in for a really deep movie, and also being the beginning of the bread crumb trail you need to follow to uncover what the movie was really about.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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So-so morning at mah jong today. Too many big or reasonable scores for me to get anywhere.
Cooler when I went out that I wished I had my jacket on. Just a little warmer on my way back. Suppose to rain on the weekend. Have to see what happens.
Got a couple of small things done at the grocery store.
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Out and about on what seems to be a cooler day. Actually got some rain last night. Not a whole lot but some.
Need to do a bit of grocery shopping.
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All done for today. When I went out temp was sitting around 78F seems we ticked up some. Now sitting 82F.
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One more day to work outside before it's back in the 90's for a few days.
Got my aunt's box sanded down and got some wood filler where it needs to go. Fortunately the work they'd done inside the box was pretty light and easy to take care of. Outside was a bear and took 12 of my velcro sanding pads. Good thing I've got about 20 boxes of those, and that was about half of one box.
I did the outside of the bookshelf from my grandma's house and started doing the inside, but I knew that wasn't going to work out well with all those inside corners. I still had about 1/5th of a pail of the stain/paint remover... Not the good stuff, but the crap that they sell us today after making the good stuff illegal, but it's good enough for what I need. I'm painting this thing, so it only needs to be sanded to get the shiny crap off. I almost threw that out last week, so I'm glad I saved it for today. Used it all up and now it's in the trash.
Also cleaned up the box hinges with my belt sander as well as the two sets of hinges for the bifolds I still need to finish and put up. Got primer on both sides and two coats of the Oil Rubbed Bronze on one side. They'll be easy to finish tomorrow.
Tomorrow I need to wash the rest of that crap off the bookshelf and then give it one more quick sand down.
After that, I'm going to start working on the 6 ceiling vents and the two wall vents for the basement. There doesn't appear to be too much rust on them, so it shouldn't be too difficult.
If I get all that done, that will leave me plenty to work on for a few days inside while I'm dodging the heat.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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I wasn't going to post anything until I put finish on, but then I looked at the pics and thought it was worth a post.
First pic is that rear projection TV screen base I was talking about using to hold a bunch of the furniture I'd taken from my Grams, but I'd be able to move it around when I needed to. I hate it, and I can't wait for it to be gone, but at least it was movable. And all that will be left on it now is the really nice chest I took for myself, and that interesting little end-table piece on top, so it won't be in the way of much and will be a lot easier to push around now.
I forgot to take after pictures of the bookshelf from today's work since it's not finished anyway, so the only picture of it right now is the back of it on this pile.
Not too bad inside. I don't know what that dark crap was, but I'm actually thinking that it was a type of adhesive somebody used from probably 60 years ago. You can tell, only from the bottom, that there has been some repairs to this over the years. It's sturdy now. I beat the hell out if it with power sanders all day and it didn't fall apart on me.
I couldn't ultimately remove all of that dark stuff, but I'm not worried about it. This thing isn't going to be without its flaws no matter what I do before staining it, and things like that are going to add character to the final product and still look great under the polyurethane.
I didn't take any other pictures of the hinges. Probably should have after I hit them with the belt sander and got them all chrome and shiny, but they're 2 layers of paint over primer on them now. They're going to look great. 
The outside was WORK...
The biggest problem when you're trying to sand pieces like this is that it doesn't matter how expensive your sandpaper was, it's just going to get almost immediately gummed up with all that ancient poly and that amber stain after the friction from sanding basically melts it into a wax. Had I been sanding something that was finished in the last 20 years it still would have happened, but to a much lesser degree and I wouldn't have flown through over a dozen sanding pads.
Those things aren't cheap, but I got a TON of them over the years when they were on a huge rebate, and then I noticed them on clearance. Tons of 40 packs of 80 and 120 grit. I could do everything left to do in my house 10 times with how many I'll still have left after this job, so no biggie.
This took the bulk of my day. I got a few hours into the bookshelf by working in the garage until 10PM and stripping that while I was sanding and spraying all my hinges. 
THOSE DOVETAILS ARE BEAUTIFUL!!!!!
I'm far from ready for stain, but looking good so far. I have to spend some more time tomorrow with the power sanders so I can smooth out all the imperfections and work my way down to 120 grit paper. I'm not painting this thing and it's going to be in its Birthday Suit.
I want to keep the natural imperfections and I don't mind the remainder of that dark stuff in the bottom, but nothing looks worse on wood than sanding gouges. Even worse than the straight ones are the swirly ones you get from muscling around an orbital sander like I was doing out there all day with 80 grit because I didn't have any 50 grit to make it easy.
Some of the sand gouges are visible in this picture, but even the practically invisible ones will show up if you stain them. They all got to go. But it's still nice to see how well it cleaned up.
I'm both nervous and excited to see how the stain looks when it's finished. I've never used an unnatural color before, but this is going to be somewhat bluish-grey to match my aunt's existing
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That's beautiful wood! No wonder you don't want to paint it! Really fine grained and pretty figured. It might be birch, beech, or maple.
Very pretty!
One of these days I should put up a picture of a maple table I refinished about 45 years ago. It had this dark gunky stuff on it that I removed with methylene chloride paint stripper and sandpaper, and replaced with polyurethane. The coating is getting a little porous now. At some point it'll need refinishing again.
*****
I was a bit under the weather for a few days. Not majorly, but I had a sinus infection and my stuffy nose kept me from sleeping well, and I'm at the age where if I don't get enuf sleep I wind up spinning my wheels half the time the day following. But today I made up for all the wheel spinning, and managed to declutter/ dejunk more of the spare bedroom in addition to catching up on kitchen chores.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
That's beautiful wood! No wonder you don't want to paint it! Really fine grained and pretty figured. It might be birch, beech, or maple.
You're the expert.
I really wouldn't know, and that's a shame. My step-dad would have taught me all of that stuff if I wasn't too busy dicking around when I was younger. I knew it wasn't pine because it wasn't fun to sand.
Quote:
Very pretty!
Yeah. Thanks. I'm very pleased with the results so far and didn't really know how it was going to go. I haven't even looked at that thing since I stacked it up and had the chests covered with bed linens. I think in my mind it was worse than reality.
It was only after I posted pics here and looked at them that I realized just how much detail went into this piece originally. Obviously I knew the dovetails were there, but I took the top off immediately and didn't ever have the pieces together while I was working on it today.
I had no idea how nice those dovetails line up from top to bottom when the lid is on, and they also used the same piece of wood for the sides of the box and the side of the lid, so all that grain pattern matches up.
What a cool little box.
Yeah... You're right about this one. There are certain pieces you just don't put paint on. This is one of 'em.
And to think... It almost got thrown out.
My aunt made it sound for months like she wanted it, and then just about last minute she decided against it. She never told me why, but made it look like a painful choice to leave it behind. I think it was because it was so beat up. And she has no idea to this day that it wasn't thrown away.
Quote:
One of these days I should put up a picture of a maple table I refinished about 45 years ago. It had this dark gunky stuff on it that I removed with methylene chloride paint stripper and sandpaper, and replaced with polyurethane. The coating is getting a little porous now. At some point it'll need refinishing again.
I'd love to see it. You just need to resurface the top, or the whole table needs work? My grandma's cats made sure you'd have to do EVERYTHING.
Quote:
I was a bit under the weather for a few days. Not majorly, but I had a sinus infection and my stuffy nose kept me from sleeping well, and I'm at the age where if I don't get enuf sleep I wind up spinning my wheels half the time the day following. But today I made up for all the wheel spinning, and managed to declutter/ dejunk more of the spare bedroom in addition to catching up on kitchen chores.
I thought you were mad at me. Maybe you are. I deserve it. I'm never going to change my mind on that issue, regardless of how I came to that conclusion. I'm sorry that this keeps happening.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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I get mad at you, SIX, but I don't stay mad!
I think you're incredibly ignorant about some things and people, but you're not innately malicious like some (AHEM!) people around here!
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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That cabinet or whatever will look good once you do what you are going to do to it. But don't take this the wrong way but it sorta looks like an old coffin.
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Laundry today to take it easy on my hands and also I have a secret about next weekend. I just hope nothing scuttles my plans.
Later an library return and something else small to do.
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Oh SIX, I thought I should warn you about staining maple. Because the grain runs in different directions, it comes out BLOTCHY. REALLY blotchy.
I discovered that when I had to stain some maple legs to match the chest they were going to be added to. For me, in the end it didn't matter bc the wood I was staining wouldn't darken enough if I used the stain as a stain (i.e. wipe off) so I had to leave it on and use it as a glaze.
But it might come out BLOTCHY.
I also tried staining a scrap of birch plywood to see if I could color match a mahogany chest of drawers, and while the blotchiness wasn't as extreme, it was still there.
There are all kinds of tips and tricks to eliminate the blotchiness. The one that came out best, for me, was pre-finishing the wood with tung oil, but it still wasn't good. If I had used a solvent-based stain and mixed it with tung oil to make a finishing stain, it might have come out better. But I didn't have a lot of time to experiment so I never really solved the problem.
Anyway, do your research on staining maple, which is apparently the most difficult wood to stain evenly. Maybe see if you can find some scrap maple to practice on. I know you had a lot of practice staining your floors, so if you can find a good technique for staining maple, tell me about it! In detail!
*****
You're right, BRENDA. Come to think of it, it DOES kinda look like a coffin!
When SIX said he had a chest, I imagined, yanno, maybe something half that length. I was surprised how BIG it is. That's a serious amount of storage space!
How about a hint about next weekend, hmmmm?
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Oh, BTW I had to do the whole table. There was a deep red wine stain in the wood from when someone put a drippy bottle on it. In the end, I had to leave it bc I didn't want to sand that far down. But I think it gives the table character.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh SIX, I thought I should warn you about staining maple. Because the grain runs in different directions, it comes out BLOTCHY. REALLY blotchy.
I discovered that when I had to stain some maple legs to match the chest they were going to be added to. For me, in the end it didn't matter bc the wood I was staining wouldn't darken enough if I used the stain as a stain (i.e. wipe off) so I had to leave it on and use it as a glaze.
But it might come out BLOTCHY.
I also tried staining a scrap of birch plywood to see if I could color match a mahogany chest of drawers, and while the blotchiness wasn't as extreme, it was still there.
There are all kinds of tips and tricks to eliminate the blotchiness. The one that came out best, for me, was pre-finishing the wood with tung oil, but it still wasn't good. If I had used a solvent-based stain and mixed it with tung oil to make a finishing stain, it might have come out better. But I didn't have a lot of time to experiment so I never really solved the problem.
Anyway, do your research on staining maple, which is apparently the most difficult wood to stain evenly. Maybe see if you can find some scrap maple to practice on. I know you had a lot of practice staining your floors, so if you can find a good technique for staining maple, tell me about it! In detail!
*****
You're right, BRENDA. Come to think of it, it DOES kinda look like a coffin!
When SIX said he had a chest, I imagined, yanno, maybe something half that length. I was surprised how BIG it is. That's a serious amount of storage space!
How about a hint about next weekend, hmmmm?
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
I know. Right. I was thinking of a chest something along the lines of the one I've got more modern.
Not a real big deal. I'm just hoping to hop over into Alberta for the long weekend. Only time my friends in Edmonton can squeeze me in.
I'm just concerned about the air line I take out there which is WestJet. Their attendants have decided to strike. If and that might be a big if, they wouldn't be able to do anything until August 2nd with 72hour strike notice. And that means that I might be able to get out there but getting back would be more difficult.
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All done for today.
Got spat on when I went out and it tried again crossing from the library to the grocery store. Have to see if anything arrives to night.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I get mad at you, SIX, but I don't stay mad!
I think you're incredibly ignorant about some things and people, but you're not innately malicious like some (AHEM!) people around here!
Yeah... I can be pretty mean though. I know that. And I like you and I know you don't deserve that. But this one issue is always going to end with that result any time we revisit it.
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
That cabinet or whatever will look good once you do what you are going to do to it. But don't take this the wrong way but it sorta looks like an old coffin.
No worries, Brenda. When I was carrying it in the house today over my shoulder, I thought the same thing. I had the scene from Terminator 3 when he was carrying Sarah Conner's coffin on his shoulder with a gat in the other hand shooting people.
It won't look anything like a coffin when it's done.
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh SIX, I thought I should warn you about staining maple. Because the grain runs in different directions, it comes out BLOTCHY. REALLY blotchy.
I discovered that when I had to stain some maple legs to match the chest they were going to be added to. For me, in the end it didn't matter bc the wood I was staining wouldn't darken enough if I used the stain as a stain (i.e. wipe off) so I had to leave it on and use it as a glaze.
But it might come out BLOTCHY.
I also tried staining a scrap of birch plywood to see if I could color match a mahogany chest of drawers, and while the blotchiness wasn't as extreme, it was still there.
There are all kinds of tips and tricks to eliminate the blotchiness. The one that came out best, for me, was pre-finishing the wood with tung oil, but it still wasn't good. If I had used a solvent-based stain and mixed it with tung oil to make a finishing stain, it might have come out better. But I didn't have a lot of time to experiment so I never really solved the problem.
Anyway, do your research on staining maple, which is apparently the most difficult wood to stain evenly. Maybe see if you can find some scrap maple to practice on. I know you had a lot of practice staining your floors, so if you can find a good technique for staining maple, tell me about it! In detail!
Are we sure it's maple? Did you figure that out or ask your husband to verify?
Any testing I'll do on the bottom. That makes the decision to just start with the bottom easy.
I don't have much hardwood floor experience. I only ever did it the one time in my house, and it was one of the first things I did after gutting the basement and getting the awful smell out of the house. I just did it so well that it looks like I have a lot of experience.
Yeah.. the only staining I've ever done in my life was those floors and the shelves and poles I did for my closets.
I'll make sure to wipe it all down with a wet rag before I start too. That helps open up the grain a bit, and even though I used my horse hair brush to dust it off, I know there's still residue on there that needs to come off before I start anyhow.
Hopefully it goes well. I've already burned the better part of 2 days on this and it's not work that's getting my house finished.
*****
Quote:
You're right, BRENDA. Come to think of it, it DOES kinda look like a coffin!
When SIX said he had a chest, I imagined, yanno, maybe something half that length. I was surprised how BIG it is. That's a serious amount of storage space!
How about a hint about next weekend, hmmmm?
My Grams called them "Hope Chests". She had 2 of them. The one I'm going to restore for myself one day is much nicer and probably quite a bit older too, but I've got to either repair or replace the enti
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Another LONG day. I spent a good 4 hours on the box again doing my best to get it sanded down without any sanding gouges. I also took out my exacto knife and dental picks so I could cut away the glue that had made its way in the corners and sanded all that down too. It's not perfect inside, but I don't want it to be. If somebody wants perfect, they can go buy a piece of cardboard with a perfect spraypaint job from IKEA and wonder why it looks like crap and is falling apart 5 years from now.
I'm having another issue with another sensor. I'm wondering if this was a bad batch or something. It was fine for a couple of days, then all the sudden I was at 150 while working and without eating for probably 12 or more hours. That's not totally abnormal by itself since if I'm sweating and not rehydrating myself, a raise of 30 without food isn't out of the question.
But then it started going over 250, and I took insulin. And 30 minutes later I felt like shit and was sweating all over the place again. This one has never gone up to 400 yet, but I'm sitting at 330 right now, and I know that's bullshit. I had to take glucose tabs twice today to combat the lows I was giving myself because my monitors are trying to kill me.
Once I get settled in for the night I'll have some pictures. I got quite a lot done today.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Oh, jeez! about the monitor! Do you still have that glucose meter and strips? It wiuld be nice to know how low you've gone.
Oh not at all sure it's maple, but I had some of the same problem with birch. If you're prepared for maple it can only get better from there.
I hope you revisit the topic again some day. I think you're working from disinformation.
****
I hadn't really planned on it, but I took the grungy kitchen mat and a rug I'm going to give away, and dragged out dish detergent, the hose, and my old floor scrubber and scrubbed and rinsed them. The kitchen mat was horrific! I scrubbed and rinsed 3x and the water still ran off a little dirty.
While I was at it, I hosed off the vehicles and vacuumed the front carpets and mats. Not a great job but much MUCH better than before!
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Now that I got the bookshelf ready for paint I've got before and after pics. It doesn't look nearly as impressive as the sand job on the box, despite even using up all the rest of my stripping agent that was shockingly still good from when I did the kitchen cabinets. But it doesn't need to. I've removed more than enough for primer to hold, and it's all getting painted white anyhow.
It is some nice looking wood though. If it wasn't so gouged up and/or I really had time to put into it, this could look a lot nicer than a paint job. I'd have to replace the back too. It's just not worth it to me. It will be something I'll never get to if I start overthinking it.
My ceiling vents, and I'm really angry in retrospect that I didn't take a before picture of the backs of these things, because as bad as some of these look in the front, about 90% of the prep work was rust removal from the back of 1 in particular, but 3 in total that had a fair amount of it on the backs.
I sanded out as much rust as I possibly could by hand, using the stack of gummed up velcro sandpaper pads for my orbial sander. That's what I've been using to sand all the corners of the box and bookshelf too. They make for GREAT hand-held sandpaper with that thick padding in between from the soft side of the hook-and-loop.
And believe it or not, I didn't slice one of my fingers while doing it. I was quite sure that was going to happen, but I was careful.
All of this spray paint except for the $10 can of oil rubbed bronze that I've been using was free. I got about 12 cans of spray paint and primer free after rebate years back that I've slowly been burning through. I finished off the white primer today, unfortunately. But I have a can of grey primer, so it's not the end of the world. I should have been using that instead of white for the oil rubbed bronze. Duh.
Speaking of oil rubbed bronze...
While I was waiting for paint to dry, I spotted this ceiling lamp that I moved to the work bench to-do pile, so I got to work on it too. I haven't cleaned the paint off that glass yet, but I got it cleaned up and put one coat of the oil rubbed bronze on it. Didn't feel the need for primer on this one. 
I still think it was the right call not spray painting one of the other vanity fixtures oil rubbed bronze, but that didn't turn out nearly as tacky looking as I thought it would with that much surface area.
Not sure when that's going to get put up in the basement bedroom to replace the ceiling fan that doubled as a tall-person decapitator.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh, jeez! about the monitor! Do you still have that glucose meter and strips? It wiuld be nice to know how low you've gone.
I wouldn't be able to tell how low after the fact. Would have had to catch it in the moment. It was bad enough to feel lousy and start sweating, but unlike the other day I made haste to get some sugar in me before it got bad. I did feel a little lousy twice today, but it was only for about 2 to 5 minutes each time. The other day when this first happened to me, I let it get pretty bad before doing something about it. I didn't start losing my vision, but I told you how I just sat in the shower for 3 minutes before I found the will to stand up.
Quote:
Oh not at all sure it's maple, but I had some of the same problem with birch. If you're prepared for maple it can only get better from there.
Gotcha. That's how I treat my electricity by doing everything to Cook County code.
Quote:
I hope you revisit the topic again some day. I think you're working from disinformation.
That may be true, Sigs. Unfortunately, if I'm right, revisiting the past isn't going to matter. War is coming. And I don't mean all these faggy wars we've been watching on TV for all my life.
Quote:
I hadn't really planned on it, but I took the grungy kitchen mat and a rug I'm going to give away, and dragged out dish detergent, the hose, and my old floor scrubber and scrubbed and rinsed them. The kitchen mat was horrific! I scrubbed and rinsed 3x and the water still ran off a little dirty.
You're probably talking about one of those beefy expensive boys, aren't you? I have my parents old dog mat for the back door. Thick rubber bottom on it, and these almost woven "pods" kind of sticking up with the valleys between them and a nice thick border all around it on the outskirts.
That thing was DISGUSTING when I took it.
But I knew what it was. That wasn't getting thrown out when they moved.
Every other mat I have in my house was from Dollar Tree. I'm pretty sure this single mat cost more than every mat I've ever bought or intend to buy in my entire life.
Quote:
While I was at it, I hosed off the vehicles and vacuumed the front carpets and mats. Not a great job but much MUCH better than before!
Good for you. Getting stuff done is nice.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Interesting...
I've decided, at least for the moment, I wanted to see what would happen if I just left this sensor in. I may be high right now, but I know I'm not low or on the verge of that anymore, so what would happen? Will it just be wrong forever now, or is this a temporary thing?
So in between the time I finished working for the night and now, it appears that it did go up to 400 for about 30 minutes (400 is the max), and then just about 20 minutes ago it started practically free-falling. It's in the 330's now, with the double arrow pointing down which usually means that you're probably in deep shit if your number was normal and you took too much insulin while eating or waited too long to eat after taking it.
I want to see where it's going to fall to now. Will it get back to my actual number?
If so, what is it about me being outside and working and sweating that would make this happen twice on two different sensors from the same batch? Or is that just a coincidence?
I can't be afraid of not being plugged in all the time. I've often wondered if doing that was a mistake that has led to complacency.
It would be a huge blow if I ever lost my insurance, but I always adapt to what I need to eventually. And it probably wouldn't be the end of the world if I had to be a lot more responsible with my diabetes than I am now.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I get mad at you, SIX, but I don't stay mad!
I think you're incredibly ignorant about some things and people, but you're not innately malicious like some (AHEM!) people around here!
Yeah... I can be pretty mean though. I know that. And I like you and I know you don't deserve that. But this one issue is always going to end with that result any time we revisit it.Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
That cabinet or whatever will look good once you do what you are going to do to it. But don't take this the wrong way but it sorta looks like an old coffin.
No worries, Brenda. When I was carrying it in the house today over my shoulder, I thought the same thing. I had the scene from Terminator 3 when he was carrying Sarah Conner's coffin on his shoulder with a gat in the other hand shooting people.
It won't look anything like a coffin when it's done.Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh SIX, I thought I should warn you about staining maple. Because the grain runs in different directions, it comes out BLOTCHY. REALLY blotchy.
I discovered that when I had to stain some maple legs to match the chest they were going to be added to. For me, in the end it didn't matter bc the wood I was staining wouldn't darken enough if I used the stain as a stain (i.e. wipe off) so I had to leave it on and use it as a glaze.
But it might come out BLOTCHY.
I also tried staining a scrap of birch plywood to see if I could color match a mahogany chest of drawers, and while the blotchiness wasn't as extreme, it was still there.
There are all kinds of tips and tricks to eliminate the blotchiness. The one that came out best, for me, was pre-finishing the wood with tung oil, but it still wasn't good. If I had used a solvent-based stain and mixed it with tung oil to make a finishing stain, it might have come out better. But I didn't have a lot of time to experiment so I never really solved the problem.
Anyway, do your research on staining maple, which is apparently the most difficult wood to stain evenly. Maybe see if you can find some scrap maple to practice on. I know you had a lot of practice staining your floors, so if you can find a good technique for staining maple, tell me about it! In detail!
Are we sure it's maple? Did you figure that out or ask your husband to verify?
Any testing I'll do on the bottom. That makes the decision to just start with the bottom easy.
I don't have much hardwood floor experience. I only ever did it the one time in my house, and it was one of the first things I did after gutting the basement and getting the awful smell out of the house. I just did it so well that it looks like I have a lot of experience.
Yeah.. the only staining I've ever done in my life was those floors and the shelves and poles I did for my closets.
I'll make sure to wipe it all down with a wet rag before I start too. That helps open up the grain a bit, and even though I used my horse hair brush to dust it off, I know there's still residue on there that needs to come off before I start anyhow.
Hopefully it goes well. I've already burned the better part of 2 days on this and it's not work that's getting my house finished.
*****Quote:
You're right, BRENDA. Come to think of it, it DOES kinda look like a coffin!
When SIX said he had a chest, I imagined, yanno, maybe something half that length. I was surprised how BIG it is. That's a serious amount of storage space!
How about a hint about next weekend, hmmmm?
My Grams called them "Hope Chests". She had 2 of them. The one I'm going to restore for myself one day is much nicer and probably quite a bit older too, but I&
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Hmmm...
Yes, getting stuff done is definitely nice!
The mat is almost like car carpeting. I was trying to find a picture online, and the rubber on the back I've noticed is beginning to crack. But its super old, and I've had to cut the rubber edging off bc it was kind of tearing off in pieces. So not as beefy as you're prolly thinking but not cheap either. About $75 new, I think.
Ooooh, a mystery wood bookcase! Looking at the wood after you stripped it, I see the grain is coarser than the chest, and there are distinct bands of coarser grain and finer grain. I'm thinking maybe .... oak?
Huh. I see that some vents are definitely rustier (is that a word?) than others.
And not gonna drag political discussions in here after this, but... war is already here, SIX. And we started it. A lot of ill will has been building up for decades. Fingers crossed we don't get what we deserve.
OK, shutting up now!
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
Yes, getting stuff done is definitely nice!
The mat is almost like car carpeting. I was trying to find a picture online, and the rubber on the back I've noticed is beginning to crack. But its super old, and I've had to cut the rubber edging off bc it was kind of tearing off in pieces. So not as beefy as you're prolly thinking but not cheap either. About $75 new, I think.
Wow. $75 and it's falling apart? This thing must have cost a lot more than that (at least with inflation). They had this thing at least since they got their dog that passed away over 10 years ago now. It was beat to hell under the feet of an 80lb English Bull Terrier for 15 years and all the human foot traffic out that door and made the trip to my house where it got the cleaning of a lifetime and has still held together ever since they moved. That mat was probably $50 over 25 years ago.
Quote:
Ooooh, a mystery wood bookcase! Looking at the wood after you stripped it, I see the grain is coarser than the chest, and there are distinct bands of coarser grain and finer grain. I'm thinking maybe .... oak?
It could be. I dunno. The only reason I'm thinking no was because the outside of it that I could reach before I stripped the inside sanded down quite a bit easier than the box did. That could be due to the different chemicals that were applied to it though.
Quote:
Huh. I see that some vents are definitely rustier (is that a word?) than others.
My spellcheck isn't freaking out over it. Probably is a real word, since it freaks out about a lot of real words I've used and I always have to add words to its dictionary after verifying I was right.
Yeah... I think it's that bottom right one that took up about 50% of my entire sanding time. One of them was about 30% covered with rust on the back. While on the opposite side, there was one that was in such nice shape I almost didn't paint it until I realized that the color would have been a slight mismatch.
Really, this wasn't a HUGE money saver, but why buy new stuff when the old stuff is fine with a little bit of work. Looks like I could buy new "diffusers" at the hardware store for about $12 each. I'll bet they're quite a bit more fragile and crappy than the ones I have though. The paint was free, and so was my time.
I couldn't find the screws yet. I'm sure they're in the garage. But I think I'm just going to buy a box of new ones because I know that they all have paint and quite a lot of rust on them. Aluminum screws, if they've got 'em. It looks like you just need 2" self-tapping screws meant to be screwed into ducts. I'm not even going to paint them until they're up there, because there's a great chance I'd just scratch the paint off trying to do that. I know that the circular "octopus" duct endings are just laying right on the ceiling and I can move them all around without the diffusers clamping them into place on the ceiling drywall. I've screwed one or two of them back in over the years and it's not easy. Just get them up there and I'll just get some white paint and one of my artist brushes and paint the tips. I'll never be taking them down again for any reason that I could ever imagine, so why not.
Quote:
And not gonna drag political discussions in here after this, but... war is already here, SIX. And we started it. A lot of ill will has been building up for decades. Fingers crossed we don't get what we deserve.
OK, shutting up now!
We don't deserve to be enslaved by Muslims.
There are only two outcomes to this problem. We are enslaved by them, or we aren't enslaved by them because we remove all of them.
Period.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Sunday, Sunday and I know there are little things I should be doing around here now but I don't feel like it.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Sunday, Sunday and I know there are little things I should be doing around here now but I don't feel like it.
Heh. You and me both, Brenda.
I think it's time we took a day off. Enjoy your day.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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I don't feel like painting or staining today. Maybe I'll work on seeing if I can get that old Atari 5200 up and running on my TV. Get a few more things taken downstairs and staged in the small bedroom for dehoarding too, after removing the old piece of tech from my current TV setup to make room for the BEAST.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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I was having me one of those days where I knew I was just going to get angry if I sat around watching youtube videos all day.
I was going to go down and prime the bookcase and the back of the two bifold doors that still need it, but I got sidetracked after pulling the bookcase downstairs...
So far, between the bathroom and the stupid hot and humid garage, I've gotten rid of nearly 1 and 1/2 big blue trash bins of stuff, and I've nearly doubled the size of the pile of scrap metal I'm going to give to somebody who loves cashing in on that stuff at the scrap yard. It'll give me a good reason to call him up out of the blue and maybe do a house call on the way to my dad's one day or something since they're around the same neighborhood.
Had a funeral for my first bad Ryobi battery after all these years. That really sucks. I knew it was bad at least since the storm, but I kept trying to plug it in again during rotation to see if maybe it just needed a few times to "get right". I even set up a single battery charger out in the garage while I was burning through batteries with all that sanding and it was a no-go out there too.
And then I found my 1st Ryobi square sander that I thought I'd thrown out years ago when I was trying to fix it in my garage. That thing is pure poison on wood now and will gouge the hell out of anything you put it to. Not only did I keep the damn thing, but it made its way back into my basement, taking up valuable shelf real estate where all my other ryobi tools were crowdedly stacked.
OUT WITH YOU, BROKEN TOOLS!!!
I've got a lot more room for everything in the basement room so far. What hasn't been thrown out and isn't regularly needed or isn't going to be needed for several future projects I intend to do all went out to the garage for sorting (on a much nicer day). And between the 3 gallons of paint I've finally finished and thrown away, as well as some stupid ass colors I took from my friend's hoard that I know I'm never going to use, I have plenty of room for all of my paint and stain that is currently open on a single shelf with all of the "markings" I put on them saying what rooms they were used in pointing to the front so I can see all of that now with a quick glance.
So now I'll have 2 nice BEEFY wood shelves that I built to put all my Ryobi tools too, and I should be able to start hacking away at what I don't need in the other 3-shelf unit I built and put in my unfinished closet down there. I know a lot of that stuff is free after rebate BS I don't want or need. It wouldn't surprise me if I've got something like 30 rolls of box tape that I got for free down there and couldn't give away. All that stuff is going.
In retrospect, I probably should have primed stuff first and it would all be ready to paint now, but I didn't think this was going to turn into a several hour project today like it has, especially since it was in the 90's today. Going outside at all wasn't on my bingo card.
My god... you could almost park 2 cars in my 2.5 car garage now...
Almost.
Sorry Brenda. I wanted to relax and enjoy the day with you. Apparently I'm too fired up to do that. Maybe tomorrow. It's even hotter tomorrow. and/or :(
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Nice!
I found a 200 box of kitchen bags I forgot I bought a long while ago and wasn't in the right place. And I also found all the black trash bags I took from my friend's hoard early last winter, or maybe even 2 winters ago now. I had a nice extra box with the lid cut off that was perfect for that purpose after I rolled them up in batches and got them organized. Now they all fit nicely in the single small cabinet under my coffeemaker where the trash bags already go, and they aren't packed so tight that I won't be able to get what I need out of there.
I won't have to buy any trash bags for 10 years.
I got the final coat of spray paint on that light fixture. I'll probably get the paint off the glass and get that cleaned up real nice later. It's all inside in the laundry room ready to install whenever I get to it. I looked at the ceiling down there and although it could probably use a final coat of paint at some point, there's no ceiling damage anywhere I can tell, so I will just pull down what's left of the ceiling fan (everything but the blades/blade holders) and I'll put that up there. I'm good at cutting paint. I'm not afraid of that thing being up there already when I still have to paint it a few years down the line.
If I get to that today I'll have pictures, but I might not. My miter saw is on a table right underneath it, and that's part of the mess that needs to be reorganized and put away. There's just so much stuff on top of that table right now.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Sunday, Sunday and I know there are little things I should be doing around here now but I don't feel like it.
Heh. You and me both, Brenda.
I think it's time we took a day off. Enjoy your day.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
Day hasn't been bad. Right now just watching the rain out my balcony's windows.
No rain up the Interior though. 2 fires have merged into one. That's the problem. These fires are burning so hot and moving so fast. Another little town being threatened called Clinton.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Day hasn't been bad. Right now just watching the rain out my balcony's windows.
That's so chill, Brenda. My step-dad would do that all the time. He got my mom to do it a lot too over the years. Same with making a fire. He could just sit there watching the rain fall or a fire burn for hours and not say a word.
He was the person who introduced me to the concept of Balance and Yin & Yang. He wasn't very good at it a lot of the time, but that was because of the wine and he knew that. But for the most part otherwise he was always striving for that balance. I think he did a pretty decent job all things considered.
Quote:
No rain up the Interior though. 2 fires have merged into one. That's the problem. These fires are burning so hot and moving so fast. Another little town being threatened called Clinton.
Uggh... We have to figure out how to stop this. I grew up my whole life with them talking about how we were cutting all the forests down to make all the stuff we use and we weren't replanting anything. Now everything just burns down every year and nobody's using any of it for anything.
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Yeah... I don't think any painting is going to start today.
But I've been on a mission. I got a few more bags of trash out from the basement and I'm really going to make it so the only things down there are my power tools and batteries, my paint and paint tools, just the most basic of tool sets that you would need around the house if it wasn't half ripped apart, and some other useful things that do get used around here. Half of that stuff can go out to the garage and doesn't need to be in the house unless for some reason in the future it's needed in here. And because I've already gotten so much out of the garage with the remodeling and dehoarding out there, I should actually have room for most of it when I take a little time to organize things in the cooler weather.
Oh... and I did spot 2 totes out there that are totally getting thrown out.
If I haven't done anything with two huge and heavy washer/dryer motors as well as other various smaller motors and fans and transformers that came from appliances like microwaves and refrigerators by now, I'm not ever going to do it. This opens up two very valuable heavy-duty totes for more important things.
Eventually I'll get the the miter saw and table out there too, but I do want to make sure that I'm done using it for any trim in the near future before I do that. It's nice having it right in the house for that, and it is absolutely frigid some winters and it sucks going out there to cut something when it's 20 degrees outside.
I don't know how long I'll keep at it tonight. I suppose until I lose the will to work on it. Doing a pretty deep clean and wiping down the windowsills and ledges around the perimeter and sweeping and vacuuming everything up too. Looks like hell down there no matter what you do, but it doesn't all have to be covered in a layer of dust and a half a shop-vac worth of sawdust and garbage wood I never got around to throwing out because, hoarder.
Maybe I'll even clean the bathroom down there sometime soon too. Toilet has been gross for quite a while, but I bought some bleach and The Works at the dollar store and I've been alternating both of them in there in between flushes over the last week and about half of what was in there is gone now without getting my hands dirty. Shouldn't be bad by the time I get to it.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Serendipity Abound.
I've found two super-bright LED lamps I bought years back, but they take 4 AA batteries. They'll last a long time on the low setting, but I don't want anything that requires batteries that aren't rechargeable anymore if I can help it. I remember my buddy saying he liked the few his Dad had, which I might have even given to him as gifts years ago if I remember right. They would have been steeply clearanced out in the electronics section and I doubt I would have paid more than $2 for each of them. So he's got two more of them now.
I've found 2 new tubes of caulk and 1 Liquid Nails that are good. I've got a bucket of tubes from my friend that I still have to go through and see what is good and what isn't.
And I dug out two boxes on the top shelf of my unit in the closet that has been covered with bed linens for a few years and though I didn't find 18 rolls of box tape that I must have finally given away, I found all sorts of free after rebate stuff up there that I forgot I still had. Better quality stuff than the stuff I've already photographed to see if anybody wants, so I might get even more takers on whatever I don't keep for myself (And make use of!!!).
Looks like I've got 6 new kitchen wash towels that will make it up into the kitchen cabinets now that there is a place for them.
I also found another brand new high quality black colored power strip, which I prefer to the white ones that always seem to turn yellow over time even if it's in a smoke free house. I knew I had another one around here somewhere. It was from the power company when they do those student discount bundles. There was also a desk lamp from that in there too. I guess I'd need to get a desk for a desk lamp. I might hold on to that. It's a nice one.
Whatever I keep isn't going back down there. Just because I have a lot of temporary shelving down there doesn't mean I need to use every square inch of it like I've been doing because that just leads to overflow and never cleaning up your messes.
NEW RULE: No more free after rebate stuff just because it's free. Only if it's necessary or you know it will be useful to other people. Future Jack doesn't find this stuff amusing anymore, Past Jack.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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No worries SIX. After I brush my teeth tonight I am going to get some recycling done then I while watch a movie before bed.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Day hasn't been bad. Right now just watching the rain out my balcony's windows.
That's so chill, Brenda. My step-dad would do that all the time. He got my mom to do it a lot too over the years. Same with making a fire. He could just sit there watching the rain fall or a fire burn for hours and not say a word.
He was the person who introduced me to the concept of Balance and Yin & Yang. He wasn't very good at it a lot of the time, but that was because of the wine and he knew that. But for the most part otherwise he was always striving for that balance. I think he did a pretty decent job all things considered.Quote:
No rain up the Interior though. 2 fires have merged into one. That's the problem. These fires are burning so hot and moving so fast. Another little town being threatened called Clinton.
Uggh... We have to figure out how to stop this. I grew up my whole life with them talking about how we were cutting all the forests down to make all the stuff we use and we weren't replanting anything. Now everything just burns down every year and nobody's using any of it for anything.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
Yeah. I also like watching snow falling too. That's pretty good as well.
I know and I live in a province where outside of fishing, logging was the other big industry. We have been replanting trees here but we are far behind the game it isn't funny at times. And a seedling has to be in the ground over 20years before it is ready to be logged. Which is why the logging companies want to go onto protected lands. Not good. There are trees in my province that are between 500-1,000years old and they are huuge both in trunk width and just height. Those are called "Old Growth" and are protected.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Yeah. I also like watching snow falling too. That's pretty good as well.
I used to until I owned a home.
Quote:
I know and I live in a province where outside of fishing, logging was the other big industry. We have been replanting trees here but we are far behind the game it isn't funny at times. And a seedling has to be in the ground over 20years before it is ready to be logged. Which is why the logging companies want to go onto protected lands. Not good. There are trees in my province that are between 500-1,000years old and they are huuge both in trunk width and just height. Those are called "Old Growth" and are protected.
Huh...
Not trying to get political or anything, but perhaps tariffs on Canada for lumber would actually deter some of that potential behavior?
How good are the local/regional/countrywide politicians when it comes to protecting all of that. Do you trust those in power to keep good on those promises.
Native Tribes and promises aside, nobody should ever think of touching trees with that kind of history anywhere in the world that they're still growing is my belief. Regrow everywhere we can, and use that to replenish our needs. We don't need to destroy everything with history like this. Because if we do that, we'll still be in the same position we were, short on everything we need, but now nothing is still left that wouldn't take another 5 to 15 lifetimes to regrow from scratch, assuming that our planet is even capable of doing that under different circumstances than those which these large trees flourished.
I would think if it's too expensive for logging companies in Canada to even consider cutting that stuff down, it can't be a bad thing. I don't even know, Brenda... are there even still tariffs against Canadian lumber imports?
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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JACKPOT!!!
I am finding SO MUCH GOOD STUFF NOW.....
I know at one point I inventoried this and I do have a sheet somewhere on my computer that has most of this stuff cataloged, but what good is that if you never open it and would have to do some digging to even find it???
I've actually got 3 more totes, and half of it is being given away.
Why did I buy 30 boxes of drywall screws meant to screw into metal studs when I'm not putting them in my current house? Don't know. They were free. No Jack... We are not saving half a giant tote of drywall screws that you might one day use in an unfinished basement at some theoretical time in the future. They're going. You can keep two boxes.
There's a bunch of stuff like that I'll never use, but I did find a giant unused roll of Duck brand duct tape, a few more new rolls of that awesome aluminum tape, a backup toilet seat, Ten 25 packs of 50/80/120 grit sandpaper, giant sized and meant to be cut away for your sanding needs. If I wasn't planning on replacing that toilet hopefully soonish, I'd put the new one up there now since that old one is looking pretty groady. I might just do it anyway. I know this one is a better seat than the one that's in there currently besides the fact it's new.
And then I found an entire tote full of various blades and bits for all my power tools, masks and safety glasses and a full unopened box of what looks to be about 50 carpenter pencils. Some of those bits are cool things like brand new countrsink sets, as well as those bits that you use to drill out enough of a bad screw with one side, so you can put the thing in reverse with the other side and it will tap into the remains of the screw and pull it out for you.
That's the good stuff. That's what I'm keeping but putting somewhere easier to get to when I need it. Somewhere out in the garage that makes sense when I get rid of more of the crap out there I don't need. I know I already have 2 totes of this kind of stuff in the garage, but didn't realize I had more in the basement too.
You forget about all of this cool stuff that you have on the ready when you put it in opaque totes and bury it with a ton of crap you're never going to use.
ETA: Sweet. Not only have I found 3 of these really cool various drill driver bit sets that has the torx and square bits as well as the normal ones. I got a bunch of them for a song after rebate with enough bits for 2 complete sets and only 4 missing from the 3rd set, but I found 3 more of them unopened and wrapped. I've never had a bit from the set go bad on me yet. They're nice.
I'm giving one of those to my Dad next time he comes over. I gave one to my buddy a while back.
Got a bunch of dupes of other various drill bits and stuff I'm just going to throw in the box I was already planning on giving to my friend.
There's going to be so much open shelf space down there when I'm done. I could actually put all of my electricity stuff I plan on getting to eventually in the new spots and off the 2nd small work table down there that used to be really nice to use until it had crap put all over it to keep it off the ground in case of water.
Plan is coming together.
I'm going to know exactly what I have, exactly what I need, and I'm finally going to get everything I don't need the hell out of here for good.
ETA2: Another bag of trash ready to go out along with 2 totes for the garage when I sort through everything out there. 3 boxes of stuff for my friends and family to claim, otherwise it's going to Goodwill or that thrift shop near me.
Got all of my electric spread out in 2 boxes now, with wire and flex conduit next to it outside of the totes on the same shelf. What's left of my electric in the garage is likely 90% garbage, so it will probably mostly end up in the scrap pile.
I've been driving some screws into the shelving unit I built to hang thing
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